The Generalitat and Renfe have agreed to reinforce Rodalies de Lleida as of January 1, 2024. Both the administration that owns the service and the operator are clear about the needs to double the number of current frequencies. Both parties agree to carry out the improvement, but disagree over who should bear the cost.
To resolve this issue, Renfe has made the signing of a specific program contract and “a payment commitment” a condition. In this way, the state operator intends to prevent the same thing from happening as with the 80 million that the Generalitat must pay it by court ruling corresponding to the complementary services between 2016 and 2019 added to what was agreed upon in the transfer of ownership in the 2010.
Those responsible for Territori, on the other hand, understand that in the case of the Rodalies of Lleida it should be the Ministry of Transport that bears the cost of reinforcing the service. The improvement represents an annual investment of around 1.8 million euros, according to the technical studies already carried out for the section of the R12 between Lleida and Cervera and which could be extended to Manresa in a second phase, still without a schedule or budget.
The creation of a specific program contract for Lleida will be the first of its kind signed by the Generalitat and Renfe after more than a decade without successive Catalan governments wanting to do so for all of Rodalies. In this case it will be limited to the Lleida service and will have a specific time, yet to be determined, although Territori’s idea is that it expires in 2025, when Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat (FGC) plans to assume the Lleida service, taking the place of Renfe.
“The contract will define the conditions of the service and is an important step because it also defines the quality requirements that must be met,” highlighted the general director of Transports, Oriol Martori, immediately specifying that the contract program for the rest of Rodalies is not included. He spoke at the meeting of the joint Generalitat-Renfe coordination body held this Thursday afternoon.
What they have talked about is the improvement of coordination and communication between administrations to deal with those derived from the works. In addition to Renfe and Generalitat, the railway infrastructure administrator (Adif) and Barcelona City Council will be involved in a new working group that will seek to better coordinate information to users and manage the consequences in the rest of the transportation options. mobility such as intercity buses.
