The number of passengers transported by AVE, Avlo, Ouigo and Iryo throughout the month of June was close to 3 million for the first time. Specifically, there were 2.9 million, a figure that represents not only an increase of 34% compared to the same month of the previous year, but also a record to date, according to data released today by the INE.
In the first half of the year, high-speed operators transported 14.8 million passengers, 40% more than a year earlier, when activity on these corridors had already recovered pre-pandemic levels.
The explosive growth of high-speed responds not only to the recovery of traffic after the covid and the opening of new links, but also to the price drops brought about by liberalization, which has given entry to private operators such as Ouigo and Iryo, above all in the connection between Madrid and Barcelona.
The rise of this mode of transport seems to have arrived now. In June 2015, without liberalization and with the country starting after the long crisis of 2008, the AVE moved 1.7 million passengers. The figure increased to 1.9 million in June 2019, before the pandemic and also before Renfe assigned capacity to the new private operators.
The date set for liberalization was January 2020 and Spain complied with the European calendar, but the pandemic ruined all plans. In June of that year, between movement restrictions, barely 279,000 people were transported, a figure that increased to one million in June 2021 and 2.1 million in June 2022, already above the pre-covid level.
The INE does not publish data on the airlift between Madrid and Barcelona, ??but in its statistics today it does indicate that plane flights within the peninsula have also grown in June of this year compared to 2022, specifically by 10%. , until moving 1.4 million passengers.
Public transport is experiencing a strong increase as a whole, close to a year after the Government and different autonomous communities launched special measures to make subscriptions cheaper and even make them free to deal with the increase in energy prices due to the invasion of Ukraine.
More than 450 million passengers used public transport in Spain in June, 18.3% more than in the same month of 2022. Urban transport increased by 21.7% in the annual rate and interurban by 18.5 %. Metro trips were 112 million, 19% more than a year earlier.
