Spanish rail freight transport is supported by the government as the Ministry of Transport, Mobility and the Urban Agenda (Mitma) has published the second call for proposals with an aid of EUR 25 million to rebalance the modal split and to increase rail traffic share. To request aid for traffic carried out throughout 2023, rail freight operators must submit the documentation electronically from January 1 and end on April 1, 2024.
The budget assigned to the 2023 call has initially increased by EUR 5 million, compared to preliminary estimations, following the increase in European funds allocated to the railway eco-incentive programme and the improvement of the bases to adapt the aid to the economic situation marked by the rise in energy prices, problems in supply chains and the invasion of Ukraine by Russia.
The call is part of the eco-incentive programme under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP) and is aimed at subsidising rail freight traffic carried out between January 1 and December 31, 2023, which meets the conditions of an order published in December 2022. The document resulted in an increase of EUR 15 million to the total budget of the programme which initially included EUR 60 million from European NextGenerationEU funds to promote Spanish rail freight transport. The extra funds come from the aid programme for companies in a competitive competition for sustainable and digital transport.
It is expected that in 2024 another call will be approved with an amount that could be increased, foreseeably, by up to EUR 25 million euros.
For the first call, ended in March, which subsidises freight traffic carried out between April 30 and December 31, 2022, nine applications have been submitted currently under assessing phase.
In March 2022, the European Commission has approved, under the EUR Stated aid rules, a EUR 120 million scheme for Spanish rail freight transport through the Recovery and Resilience Facility to support road traffic to be shift towards railways. This scheme, which will run until 30 June 2026, is aimed at promoting rail as a more environmentally friendly mean of transport, as well as at contributing to the greening of rail transport.
This support will take the form of direct grants to compensate rail freight operators for the cost difference between road and rail transport based on the actual volumes of freight shifted from road to rail transport. The aid amount is also calculated based on the environmental performance of the rail companies, which incentivises performance improvements. The scheme is open to all freight companies established in the European Union and possessing all the necessary licences and the maximum amount of aid per beneficiary depends on the modal shift achieved.
Mitma says that a company may opt for more or less aid depending on the growth of its activity, the type of traction of the locomotives and the occupation of the freight wagons. Operators will be able to take advantage of the subsidies to, for example, reduce rates or improve the quality of services, which will result in tangible benefits for shippers and the rest of the multimodal chain. The companies will receive the subsidies if, during 2023, they register a traffic greater than or equal to the average of the traffic carried out during the same period of the two previous years, and an occupation or efficiency of more than 20%, among other requirements.
Any type of traffic – intermodal, automotive, etc. – with the exception of coal, is considered eligible. The greater the reduction in external environmental and socio-economic costs, the greater the aid that will be received. In this way, greater aid will be given to electric traction than to diesel and a higher degree of occupancy of freight wagons will prevail. Including several requirements, Mitma says that the annual amount of the subsidy must be less than 30% of the total cost of rail transport.
The financing of initiatives will help Spanish rail freight transport to win the battle with road transport as the authorities support the rails’ environmental performance activity which also helps to reduce the dependence on fossil fuels.
The railway eco-incentive programme is based on triple objectives aiming at strengthening and increasing rail modal share within the multimodal chains as an alternative in the transport of goods, at increasing rail operators’ traffic to deliver more attractive services in the benefit of their customers and at improving their environmental performance by encouraging the prioritization of the use of electric traction systems and improving efficiency.
Adif plans to increase freight transport
At the beginning of June, Adif has presented a report on its guidelines to effectively increase rail freight transport with actions that mobilise an investment of more than EUR 1 billion since 2018.
The company undertakes 26 actions in different strategic axes, such as for ROLA services, intermodal logistics nodes, the deployment of modern and digital systems and connections with port infrastructures as part of the programme to develop the Atlantic and Mediterranean trans-European corridors.
All of the actions performed by Adif are aimed at improving productivity and network management and increasing competitiveness with significant savings in external costs and GHG emissions. These measures will attract a greater number of companies to this mode of transport, advancing towards more sustainable and competitive mobility included in an efficient multimodal network.
Adif is working on different rail connections to support ROLA services with high demand. The rail infrastructure manager is working on the connection between Algeciras and Zaragoza to adapt the gauge and overpasses to the requirements of such services. The Madrid – Valencia is another project adif is working and is expected to be completed in 2024 and recently has signed a contract for Seville – Madrid and Huelva – Madrid axes. These two routes the company is analising options to extend them towards Zaragoza.
On June 7, Adif the Seville Port Authority (APS), Grupo Pantoja (GP) and Rail&Truck Strait Union (R&T) signed a collaboration agreement to initiate ROLA services on the Seville – Córdoba – Madrid corridor. under the agreement, an economic and management feasibility will be elaborated to develop the rail infrastructure and intermodal terminals as well as to adapt the rolling stock. The route will connect the Terminal Marítima del Guadalquivir, located in the Port of Seville, with Madrid Abronigal rail terminal and the Madrid-Vicálvaro terminal where Adif is currently performing works to increase its capacity.
250 round trips per year are expected to be deployed on the Madrid – Seville route with 16,000 semi-trailers per year to be transported initially. The capacity is expected to increase to 32,000 each year. These services would initially capture 5% of the market and would reach to 10%.
On June 7, Adif has also signed an agreement with Port Authority of Huelva (APH) to develop ROLA services on Iberian gauge lines between Huelva and Madrid with a possible extension to Zaragoza promoting the transport of semi-trailers onto railways to shift road transport towards railways and decarbonise transport sector. The two companies will collaborate to manage and invest in projects aiming at developing an efficient operation on railways providing additional capacity, including in terminals, and to make available more specific rolling stock. Adif will carry out actions related to gauges in tunnels, overpasses, bridges, stations and electrification needed for semi-trailers (of P400 type) transport on pocket wagons.
Renfe Mercancías will provide specialised wagons for semi-trailers loading on Iberian-gauge lines with an initial daily round-trip traffic between Huelva and Madrid. This service will be carried out using zero-emission electric locomotives. At the same time, the Port of Huelva will increase the capacity of the loading/unloading infrastructure according to Renfe Mercancías’ needs. In April 2023, Thales was awarded a contract to deliver and install new safety systems at rail terminals in the Port of Huelva.
Huelva – Madrid – Zaragoza corridor is recording an high volume of road freight transport from or to the Port of Huelva mainly from the Canary Islands and other destinations, as well as internal production in the province of Huelva, with the consequent environmental impacts, noise and risks on road safety. An important part of this transport comes from the Ro-Ro services from the Motorways of the Sea which is likely to continue its journey by rail through ROLA services.
The investment in the logistics facilities exceeds EUR 493 million and Adif is advancing the development of its strategic network of intermodal nodes, mainly in Madrid (Vicálvaro terminal), Valencia (Fuente de San Luis terminal) in Alva (Júndiz terminal) as well as in Valladolid, Seville and Zaragoza. Actions are being carried out at these facilities to adapt them to the interoperability parameters and increase their capacity, advancing towards a model in which the intermodal terminal converges with the logistics zone and creates synergies. In these terminals, digital technology is essential for the automation of management processes and the provision of 5G connectivity which will facilitate the synchro-modality of the multimodal transport chain and the improvement of the operational processes. The development of the logistics terminals in Madrid, Valencia, Barcelona and Álava and the deployment of 5G technology will receive European funding through the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP).
This year, the strategic logistics nodes on the Atlantic and Mediterranean corridors benefit a EUR 1.6 billion investment from Adif and Adif AV for actions related to each corridor to promote intermodality, improve the efficiency and reliability of the network and its adaptation to European standards.
To boost freight traffic on these corridors, the expansion of sidings by up to 750 metres is key to accommodate longer trains for which EUR 80 million investments have been made.
For both Atlantic and Mediterranean corridors, more than EUR 424 million have been mobilised for the construction of railway accesses to ports to connect with the network of strategic nodes, the rest of the railway network, including the European corridors. Among the works in progress are implemented for the connections with the ports of Barcelona, Sagunto, Castellò, Seville and Bilbao to improve efficiency of the logistics chain and to increase Spanish rail freight transport. The authorities will invest EUR 8 billion to increase rail freight modal shift to 10% until 2030.
Share on:
