Second appearance of the Minister of Transport and Sustainable Mobility, Óscar Puente, to report on the problems encountered by the railway network. The first, in the Senate. The second, this Thursday, in the Congress of Deputies. In both cases, the emphasis is on incidents due to works, delays and breakdowns of trains.
The latter have guided part of the appearance of Puente, especially the Talgo Avril, which entered service last spring – and where half of the 22 delivered have had problems – in a scenario where there are more and more travelers. “We are facing a huge number” of “passenger growth, in double digits”. “We are under enormous pressure to provide this service”, acknowledged Puente. “There are 20% of trains that are not fit to provide the service”, among all modalities, whether high-speed, medium-distance or Cercanías.
In an attempt to reverse this situation, the head of Transport stressed that the largest purchase of rolling stock in history will be made. In total, “430 new trains, with the option of 90 more”, which will be destined for Cercanías and Rodalies and all territories.
There are the problems of the trains and, in addition, of the works, which are hidden behind the fact that “breakdowns occur in all the railway systems in the world”. “Incidents in the infrastructures have increased in the last year”, acknowledged Puente, “because we are immersed in a huge volume of works, the largest in our history and that produces incidents, but the inconveniences are temporary, the benefits will be definitive”. In this sense, he stressed that currently there are 200 buses that offer alternative services to the trains.
“We are making a huge investment effort, but it has not always been like this”, where he highlighted the significant “contraction” of spending between 2012 and 2018 “where investments in conventional systems and Cercanías were reduced to a minimum”. Last week, in the Senate, the head of Transport already highlighted that the budget for infrastructure and trains for the 2018 financial year, the last with Rajoy in Moncloa, was 4.31 billion euros; and the last in 2023 amounted to 7.397 million.
“Beyond the comments or opportunism that we want to make with these incidents,” assured Puente. “We have very acceptable punctuality rates, compared to our environment.” “The European Commission, in July, it is true that with the data from 2020, it speaks of a punctuality of 90% and at the beginning of this year we are very close to this average.” On the other hand, Puente assured that in Germany punctuality is 50% and in Italy 76%.
These punctuality percentages this summer are very marked by the problems of Talgo’s April, the 22 trains that entered service in May and where punctuality in the first week of August was reduced to 50%.
Puente concluded his appearance by asking for “patience and understanding.” “We are investing more than ever” and, although incidents will continue and “will occur until we have overcome the most critical phases” of the work, “the future of the railway is promising.” “There is a government involved in sustainable transport and we will increasingly offer a better service,” he assured.
