The capillarity of the bus, a strong point to compete with the train

2024-03-23 23:14:25

Sunday, March 24, 2024, 00:14

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The train sector is recording record passenger numbers since high speed was liberalized. The French company Ouigo was followed shortly after by the Italian company Iryo three years ago, which has managed to extend routes, reduce prices and give travelers more options.

“Until now the high-speed network was completely underused, there are millions of new users who are filling all the operators,” said Patricia Miranda, director of Legal Advice at Ouigo in Spain, in a forum organized by Trainline in which all attendees They highlighted the importance of promoting intermodality, that is, allowing travelers to go from one point to another by various means of transport in the simplest and most economical way possible. In countries like Germany, the complementarity between the railway network – much denser than that of Spain – and the road – buses or shared cars – “works very well,” Miranda assured.

Interregional bus networks

Number of shipments per day

Source: Afi and Ministry of Development

Interregional bus networks

Number of shipments per day

Source: Afi and Ministry of Development

Interregional bus networks

Number of shipments per day

Source: Afi and Ministry of Development

Spain has this challenge to connect and decarbonize transportation: give more value to the regional connection area. And this could be achieved with a good bus transport network. Currently in Spain the sector is regulated through a system of public tenders to which any player in the market can opt, so it is not a monopoly as was the case with the high-speed railway of Renfe (AVE) a few years ago. The president of the Spanish Bus Transport Confederation (Confebús), Rafael Barbadillo, assures that there are also foreign companies that can enter the bus market “like any other”, they simply have to meet the requirements set by the EU. “It will be a system similar to the one that the Cercanías network will have from 2027 when the contracts are put out to tender,” he explained to this newspaper.

In his opinion, the current one is a model that allows the territory to be “structured” because there are 8,000 towns that are connected daily by bus, while the development of the railway network “is what it is and goes where it goes.” In addition, rates are stable throughout the year and do not fluctuate upwards due to demand peaks, and this system allows quality employment through stable contracts. The only negative part that Barbadillo sees is that sometimes it has become an “auction model” in which the bidder who provides the cheapest service wins the tender, but he is confident that this will change.

This week the organization proposed 20 measures on the bidding model on which its model is based. Proposals such as improving market knowledge, working with a realistic forecast of demand and income, the correct conceptualization of economic-financial feasibility studies, the adjustment of the evaluation criteria and awarding of offers until the review of the contractual conditions, among others.

The report ‘Towards a sustainable model of public-private collaboration in people’s mobility’, prepared with KPMG, includes a survey of the sector in which 93% disagree with the current contract bidding budgets, and a 70% of those surveyed assure that the rigid conditions of the sector prevent the bus from competing efficiently with other means of transport.

Leave the car at home

“We must be able to reach beyond Adif’s infrastructure,” said Antonio Díaz, director of Legal Advice at Iryo, in that same forum. In his opinion, the complementarity of means of transport is “basic” and a “call effect” must be generated to leave the car at home, but he recognizes that there is a “regulatory challenge” and infrastructure. “If the conditions are attractive for companies in the transportation sector, we will all enter in a cascade,” said Díaz. In this sense, the country manager of Trainline, Pedro García, indicated that his studies reveal that the east and south of the peninsula is where the population is most happy with transportation, coinciding with the areas where the high-speed train network It is more developed.

In his opinion, intermodality is the future, with high-speed rail lines that cross the country, but regional trains and buses connect more remote points in a simple way. “We are looking for increasingly sustainable transport options, shorter travel times and cheap tickets,” he explained.

It is the same opinion held by the president of Confebús, who assures that the train is not his competition, but rather that they are two complementary modes of transport. “Intermodality is the key, you have to be able to get to Valencia by train but then there is coordination so that the last kilometers are by road transport,” Barbadillo gave as an example. He recognizes that there are some routes (Madrid-Barcelona or Madrid-Valencia) in which the high-speed train has ‘stolen’ travelers from the bus, but he puts the value in that “capillarity” of the bus, which arrives where the train takes it. it is impossible.

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