The low-cost operator of the French company SNCF, Ouigo, will start operating tomorrow the second high-speed line that it puts into operation in Spain. Its trains will connect Madrid and Valencia in 1 hour and 50 minutes with prices starting from 9 euros for adults.
After launching its 'low cost' services on the Madrid-Barcelona line in May last year, the operator will offer five round-trip daily frequencies between the València-Joaquín Sorolla and Madrid-Chamartín-Clara Campoamor stations. Specifically, 35,630 weekly seats have been put up for sale, that is, 14,252 more seats than those contemplated in its initial offer, after receiving authorization from Adif.
The Ouigo trains will thus be added to those of the AVE and Avlo de RENFE to cover this route at high speed after the liberalization of the sector that began in 2020. To the new weekly offer of the Madrid-Valencia route will be added the 64,134 seats of the Madrid-Barcelona line, with which the total offer of Ouigo in Spain will be around 100,000 weekly seats.
The company boasts that its trains are the ones with the highest capacity in Spain (509 passengers in a single unit and 1,018 in a multiple unit, as it has two floors). In addition, it highlights that they pollute on average 80 times less than an airplane and 50 times less than a car.
After the inauguration of this line to Valencia, the company's next step will be to open the one that connects Madrid with Alicante -with a stop in Albacete-, something that it plans to do in the first half of 2023, after homologating its trains to the security system ERTMS2, different from Barcelona and Valencia.
Ouigo has also set itself the goal of reaching Andalusia to connect Madrid with Seville and Malaga, with a stop in Cordoba. Beforehand, the other safety system present on this line, the LZB, will also have to be approved on its trains.
