Three children run towards the door of the Joaquín Sorolla station in Valencia, excited to board a train for the first time. His mother, who takes the car out of the taxi, has no suitcases. "We're going to eat in Madrid, we'll come back later in the day," she explains while she keeps an eye on the little ones, who are somewhat agitated. The oldest just fell to the ground.
Another traveler says that she comes and goes to Madrid frequently to see a friend and explains that the almost 50 euros she has paid these days "are not usual", but she understands that the price has risen due to the Christmas season. Next to her, a couple loads two trolleys because they will travel from Madrid to Lanzarote, the departure from the capital was "cheaper." And a fourth user whom this newspaper consults says that he works between both cities and that, accustomed to coming and going every Thursday and Monday a week, "I never pay more than 40 euros, at most." Maybe this Christmas journey will be an exception.
They are small stories of the many passengers accumulated on the Madrid-València line, consolidated for a long time, but especially dynamic in price since the entry of new railway operators. And this year 2023 is the first in which the liberalization of high speed on the Madrid-València line allows a complete balance to be shown and the figures show success in the connection.
To the offer proposed by Renfe, with 24 daily AVE services, 12 in each direction, six Avlo, three in each direction, and one Alvia in each direction with origin and destination Valencia, we must add that of Ouigo, active since October 2022 and also that of iryo, which arrived in December of the same year. Now, with the year practically completed, the sum of all of them leaves more than thirty trains in each direction in the connection between Valencia and the Spanish capital and, in addition, causes a reduction in the price of the ticket, since according to a study by Trainline the Convoys that connect the Spanish capital with Valencia have registered a drop of 44% and have an average cost of 23 euros.
In fact, the arrival of new railway operators in Spain has caused decreases in the average prices of all routes open to competition, especially in the case of trains that connect Madrid and Barcelona, in which the cost of tickets has fallen. 65% since 2019. And it has also caused an increase in the number of passengers on routes open to competition, among which Madrid-Alicante stands out, where Trainline indicates that the figure from the previous year has multiplied by up to six. They add that the routes with the most traffic are the one between Madrid and Barcelona, those between Valencia, Seville and Malaga with Madrid and the one that connects València with Barcelona, where there is no high speed. The Mediterranean corridor is under construction, let us remember.
The Madrid-València connection has registered five times more passengers this year than in 2022, according to the same source. The success of the line is more than consolidated, and is not recent. Since 2010, the year the line was inaugurated, Renfe has transported more than 27.6 million customers on its High Speed trains (AVE, Avlo, Alvia) between Madrid-Cuenca-Requena-València.
The departures panel at the Joaquín Sorolla station yesterday showed up to three trains to Madrid between each Mediterranean route, whether Alicante or Barcelona. The Mediterranean connection, which adds one million annual travelers this year according to the latest verified data, is still far from the model that connects Cap i Casal with the Spanish capital, which practically triples this figure and that, adding the travelers from the connection to Alicante, would leave more than five million users connected in the Valencian Community and the Community of Madrid. Currently there are eight trains in each direction, between Euromed and Intercity (the old Talgo), on a line in which only Renfe operates.
The price is one of the big 'buts' of this connection, which depends on the revenue, that is, the price is set based on the hours of train circulation, the degree of occupancy, the demand curve or the advance notice. buys. For example, at the time of writing this it was possible to purchase a Valencia-Barcelona round trip ticket for 54 euros and another, on the same day, for approximately 100 euros.
In the train offer for the Valencia-Madrid connection, iryo has an option that ranges between 22 and 26 euros for the service; while Ouigo offers trips with prices starting at 9 euros for adult travelers. Between January and November of this year, high-speed and long-distance rail traffic skyrocketed by 38.2% compared to the same period in 2022. By rail axes, the one that recorded the greatest growth, 71.5%, was the High Speed Line (LAV) that connects Madrid with the Valencian Community and Murcia; followed by Madrid-Barcelona (40.8%), Madrid-Andalusia (23.3%) and Madrid-Valladolid-León-Zamora-Galicia (12.1%).
