The popularization of the high-speed train thanks to the price war in which the three companies that circulate in the Barcelona-Madrid corridor are immersed has meant that more and more travelers are choosing this means of transport even if they do not live nearby. of the station. The trip does not end in Atocha or Sants, much less in cases like Camp de Tarragona, which requires other transportation even to get to the nearest city.
The combination of the train with a bus, a taxi, a car or a scooter to complete the trip is what is known as multimodality and is a concept that will be heard a lot in the coming years in the sector. Offering the traveler the piece that completes the journey from the station to the final destination has become one of the priority future objectives for the companies that have begun to compete with Renfe after the liberalization of the railway sector, as Ouigo recognized yesterday. and Iryo in a meeting organized by the Trainline ticket sales platform.
Renfe is the company that has taken the most steps in this direction. More than a year ago it launched doco, the comprehensive mobility platform that allows you to buy a train ticket and reserve a VTC, a rental car or a shared motorcycle to complete the journey both to go to the station to catch the train and to arrive to the final destination once the traveler gets off the train. The initiative developed by the public company together with Siemens and NTT Data has not made the expected mark, partly due to the difficulty of reaching an agreement with other transport operators, and the number of users is being very modest.
Even so, both Ouigo and Iryo believe that more initiatives are necessary that delve into this formula. It is Iryo that has taken the most steps in this direction by offering combined train and air travel in an alliance with Air Europa (whose owners are part of the railway company's shareholders), as well as discounts on car rentals and taxi reservations. All of this is grouped under the name Iryo Conecta, which is, in a way, the germ of a multimodal platform, “a clear and defined commitment by the company and for which means are being put in place to develop it,” according to Antonio Díaz, director of Iryo legal advice.
For its part, Ouigo has not yet launched any product for its users, although it has it among its priorities. To do this, they believe it is essential to have the involvement of the rest of the public transport modes and modify issues such as bus line concessions. “They are from another time, too rigid, they must be adapted to new needs,” said Patricia Miranda, director of Ouigo's legal office. She gave as an example the case of the Camp de Tarragona station, where they had serious difficulties in adapting the public transport service to the incorporation of the new trains that stopped there. It involved a lengthy renegotiation of municipal contracts that left commuters for some weeks without a bus when they got off their train. “High-speed lines are large pipes that work very well, but we all need water to reach our homes and Spain outside of high-speed lines has a challenge,” Miranda concluded.
All the actors involved believe that, beyond investment and management in means of transport other than just high speed, innovation will play a fundamental role. For the head of Trainline in Spain, Pedro García, “technology must facilitate the combination with the car or with whatever is needed in each case, although always encouraging and positively discriminating the most sustainable options.”
In that sense, García is committed to combining the train with the bus to reach those areas far from the stations without having to resort to a private vehicle. In fact, according to a report prepared by this platform, half of Spaniards who use high speed combine with a bus at origin or destination.
