Renfe: paying for highways and reducing the canon would make it 31 euros cheaper to travel from Madrid to Barcelona

• Tolls Payment for highways: Madrid-Valencia will cost a minimum of 3.2 euros and a maximum of 31 euros

The president of Renfe, Isaías Taboas, has said that reducing the canon per passenger and the payment for use of the highways will benefit the increase in passengers on the train and also the recovery of passengers.

, before the pandemic.

Taboas made these statements at an informative breakfast at the Executive Forum in which he explained the challenges that Renfe faces in the face of market liberalization.

"If we have to copy something from the competition, we will do it but we will fight with our weapons. What we are not going to do is drop prices just because.

and make sure everything fits well so as not to lose money by train. You can win money only by vending or drawing, but you can never make trips at a loss."

In this sense, to be competitive,

"The fee per traveler is 53% in Avlo and 44% in Renfe."

According to Taboas, in Italy the canon was lowered and there was an increase in travelers.

Another aspect that harms Renfe's income and profitability is the increase in energy costs.

"We have not been able to pass on the cost of energy to the price of tickets. The energy cost was 7% and has multiplied by three, which affects profitability," said Taboas.

"What we have to do is produce energy for self-consumption and if the train does not pass that energy we can pass it to the network, with which the investment necessary for self-consumption would be amortized in a year and a half instead of three. But it is necessary a regulatory change to be able to be self-consumers", explained the president of Renfe.

Yes, Renfe can put solar panels on the roofs of the workshops to self-consume the energy necessary for the arduous maintenance tasks.

Payment for use of motorways

The payment for road use, which is a very complicated envelope in public transport policy, and which cannot be solved overnight, is environmentally beneficial.

If you paid 5 euros to go from Madrid to Valencia, you would save 13,000 tons of CO2 per year.

I don't know if 5 euros to go to Valencia is a lot or a little money?

It's not up to me, but it's a debate that society has to have."

With the data handled by Renfe, payment for the use of the motorway and the reduction of the canon would mean that

.

According to Renfe, if 5 cents per kilometer were paid for using the highways, 38,600 thousand tons of CO2 would be saved and if 10 cents were charged, 99,500 thousand tons of CO2 per year would be saved.

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