The Minister of Transport and Sustainable Mobility, Óscar Puente, announced this Tuesday during a business meeting in Madrid -organized by the Conexus Foundation- a four-month extension (until February 15) of the tip of the ring of the AP-7 highway in the Ring road from Alicante.
Although the first data shows a positive effect of the free toll, the ministry must continue to collect information and analyze it to build a traffic model to quantify the socio-economic benefits of removing the toll in terms of reduced travel times. journey and externalities such as the accident rate. , noise and emissions, as detailed by the Puente department in a press release.
This free service contributes to achieving the objective of decongesting the A-70, since traffic drops (IMD) of 10 to 12% were noted in the section of the motorway north of the junction with the A -31, thanks to the fact that long-distance traffic and goods are diverted along the AP-7.
At the same time, traffic on the Alicante ring road has practically doubled, with a much more intense increase in the number of heavy vehicles than light vehicles and being more attractive for long distances than for short ones. Despite the 95% increase recorded in the first analyses, given that the road was clearly underused (between 6,000 and 10,000 vehicles/day), this increase does not affect the level of service of the road.
Like the A-70 This is a road almost at maximum capacity and the flows are unstable. improvement appreciable of the speeds route, avoiding congestion situations, they added the same sources.
Key rail infrastructure
In this forum in front of Valencian businessmen, convened by the Conexus Foundation in Madrid, the minister highlighted that since June 2018, tenders have been taking place in the sector Mediterranean Corridor works worth 7.1 billion euros and contracts were won for 5.3 billion euros, which have currently made it possible to create more than 800 kilometers of corridor, in addition to several logistics terminals and port accesses.
“Today, 100% of the Mediterranean Corridor is in motion. All THE sections waiting are in a certain phase of treatment or in execution” said Puente, in addition to reiterating the “commitment” and the “bet” of the government towards this railway infrastructure which will become the connecting axis between Andalusia, Murcia, Valencia and Catalonia, as well as the “great artery multimodal “which will connect Algeciras with Ukraine and the rest of the trans-European networks.
In the area of connectivity and logistics of the Valencian Community, the minister aims to promote sustainable intermodal transport of goods, with train and ports at the center.
At this stage, he recalled that in less than a year, the first stone of Terminal North Port of Valence and that last week, the Port Authority approved the call for tenders for the operating concession for the future new terminal.
