Free Train Tickets To Be Extended Until End Of 2023 In Spain
Spain News
Published: 05 October 2022 15:10 CET
Spain’s General State Budget for 2023 has been announced and includes the extension of the government's free multi-journey ticket scheme.
The announcement was made on Tuesday, October 4, by Spain’s Budget Minister María Jesús Montero, who explained that the scheme would be extended until at least December 2023.
The scheme was initially put in place to help commuters fight inflation and came into force on September 1. To fund this, the government confirmed at the beginning that 221 million euros would be allocated to regional governments and transport authorities across the country, a figure that may need to be increased now that the extension has been put in place.
The original plan was for it to come to an end on December 31, 2022, but the government has made the decision to extend it for another year, to the time that the environmental impact will be evaluated.
The free tickets are available on trains operated by state-owned network Renfe, including Cercanias, Media Distancia, for local and medium distance journeys and Rodalies in Catalonia.
To acquire the free travel offer, commuters are required to pay a deposit. On Cercanias or Rodalies, the deposit is 10 euros, whilst the price on Media Distancia trains is 20 euros. If at the end of the year at least 16 trips were made during the first four months, the deposit will be refunded.
It is, however, uncertain, as to how many trips commuters will have to make to have their deposit refunded going into 2023, now that the scheme has been extended.
Since the free-ticket scheme began, Media Distancia has seen trips grow by 40 percent since September 2022, Cercanias have seen an increase of 24 percent.
To date, 1.5 million free multi-journey tickets have been requested with the aim to reach 2 million by the end of this year.
It is really important to remember that the free-tickets are only available for multi-journey tickets, not for high-speed AVE trains or single journeys.
Although many welcome the extension, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, president of the Popular Party branded the scheme as "unfair" to the thousands of Spaniards who do not have rail transport. "There are many square kilometres, in many places in Spain, that do not have Cercanías or Media Distancia,” the opposition leader noted. He said he found the scheme to be "imbalanced from a territorial point of view.”
The PP propose that help is also given to those who are not being able to benefit from subsidies of the RENFE bonus, they believe that “The logical thing is to offer them a similar bonus for public road transport so that it has a similar treatment to rail transport.”
PP sources also pointed out that the extension of free transportation in Cercanias and Media Distancia is for electoral purposes. “They do not want to remove the aid before the municipal and regional elections in May or the general ones, which are expected to be held at the end of the year.”
Sources
https://www.thelocal.es/20221004/spains-free-train-tickets-to-continue-throughout-2023/
https://www.20minutos.es/noticia/5066146/0/el-gobierno-traslada-la-presion-a-las-autonomias-para-que-alarguen-los-descuentos-en-metro-y-autobus-durante-todo-2023/
