Renfe takes up the 'low cost' AVE project Madrid-Barcelona

Renfe takes up the 'low cost' AVE project Madrid-Barcelona

The project, which is approved on Tuesday, will be launched before the end of 2020 train transport opens to the competition

  The project announced a year ago of a 'low cost' AVE that would unite Madrid and Barcelona at a lower price in exchange for reducing benefits is once again on the table. Renfe will resume the EVA project (the inverted acronym of AVE, Spanish High Speed) to be in circulation before the transport of train passengers will be opened to the competition in December 2020.

Renfe will include the launch of EVA in the strategic plan approved by its board of directors on Tuesday, according to sources from the sector to Europa Press. Consulted by this newspaper, the company postpones to the meeting on Tuesday to give more information about it. This will resume the plans announced in February 2018 by the former Minister of Development, Íñigo de la Serna , who with the change of Government saw how the goal of putting it into operation in this first quarter of the year was complicated.

The project presented by De la Serna included tickets up to 25% cheaper than those of conventional high speed and five daily trains per day between the stations of El Prat and Madrid Atocha. But how will costs be reduced? They will be trains that do not have a cafeteria , but there will be a car with vending machines; lighter materials with a less complex finish than conventional AVE will be used; and the number of employees will also be reduced in each train, according to sources in the sector.

On the part of Renfe did not give in the presentation of the project many details on the "inferior benefits" to which they referred, and only spoke of a greater capacity to transport more passengers , which would indicate less space between seats. The initial estimate was one million passengers transported per year , of which 250,000 will be new passengers of this type of transport, according to the calculations that the public company was doing then.

In the meeting of the board of directors will have to set the deadlines for the implementation of EVA, which would go through the remodeling of some trains, although it is expected to be before the end of 2020 comes the competition to take over that market and demand of rapid transport between the two capitals before this total opening to the sector.