Renfe marks 15 years of high-speed rail between Madrid and Barcelona
Renfe on Monday celebrated the 15th anniversary of the Alta Velocidad Española (AVE) service between Madrid and Barcelona. The high-speed connection between the capital and the coastal metropolis reduced travel time to just over 2.5 hours.
The Madrid-Barcelona AVE services kicked off with 17 daily connections in 2008, a number that has since increased to 54. Renfe was also able to shave of 8 minutes of travel time to end up with exactly 2.5 hours. Passenger numbers grew from 5.7 million in the inaugural years of the service to more than 12 million in 2022. This means the line had a share of 2.75 per cent in the total number of passengers carried by Renfe that year.
Over the past 15 years, Renfe moved more than 140 million passengers between Madrid and Barcelona. The company estimates the CO2 savings to be in the range of 4.7 million tonnes.
Revenue from passenger traffic was up by 844.8 million euros to reach 3.788 billion in 2022. This represents an increase of 28.7 per cent. Passenger numbers itself exceeded 436 million in 2022, a plus of 45 per cent. Total company income was up 27.5 per cent to 4.127 billion euros.
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