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ARCHIVED - Cheap fares boost public transport numbers in Spain passed pre-pandemic figures
The use of trains and buses in Spain grew by 18% last year compared to 2021
Throughout 2022, the Spanish government implemented numerous crisis measures to ease the financial impact of the war in Ukraine on the ordinary consumer. One of the stars of the show has to be the cost reduction of public transport tickets for regular users, which was first implemented in April last year and will continue during 2023.
Many government operated trains are now completely free for people who obtain season passes, and this cost-cutting measure resulted in 424 million passengers last November alone, almost 650,000 more people than in the same month of 2019, before the coronavirus pandemic hit.
Even more dramatic is the fact that Spain saw a staggering 76 million more train passengers in November 2022 compared to the previous year – that’s an 18% increase.
The trend continues in city transport, which has discounted its tickets by as much as 50% in places: in November, 109.2 million people used the metro in Spain, far more than the 104.3 million passengers in 2019. And while 15% more people chose to take the bus last year compared to 2021, these numbers are still below the figures for 2019 when 151.7 passengers hit the road.
But the crowning glory of the government’s travel measures has to be the free tickets for frequent travellers on the Cercanías and Media Distancia trains. In November, 48.2 million took a Cercanías train, almost three million more than those who used it in the same month of 2019. The increase is also very notable in Media Distancia trains (previously known as Regionales), which registered 3.7 million people compared to 2.9 million in 2019.
However, long-distance trains like the AVE have taken a hit and air travel has yet to return to its pre-pandemic level: in 2019, 3.9 million Spaniards travelled through the country by plane, while in November 2022, this figure dropped to 3.2 million.
Image: Archive
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