Renfe goes on the attack and calls on the Government to make an effort to implement 'pay per use' on Spanish highways. The president of the public company, Isaías Táboas, calculates that with a payment of 2 cents per kilometer, polluting emissions would be reduced by 1,400 tons of CO2. And the transfer of passengers from the road to the train proposed by the Executive would be accelerated.

"Society must be made aware that paying for the use of the road generates environmental benefits," explained Táboas at an event organized by the Executive Forum. According to the company's calculations, with the payment of 10 cents per kilometer, emissions equivalent to 2.3 million Madrid-Valencia journeys of an average utility vehicle are avoided.

The request from the public operator, which had not taken a position on tolls until now, comes at a key moment for the proposal. As published by ABC, the Government has left the 'pay for use' of motorways and highways up in the air, and although at first it assured that the model would be implemented in 2024, now it no longer talks about deadlines due to the lack of political consensus and economical compared to the measure.

In addition to calling for the implementation of tolls on highways, Táboas has called on the Government to lower the railway fees (rates) that operators pay Adif for using its tracks and stations. According to Renfe's calculations, these rates represent 44% of the costs of the AVE and 53% of the costs of Avlo, its low-cost high-speed brand. "No other means of transport has such a high cost," explained Táboas.

Renfe assures that if Spain were to imitate the Italian fee system, it could reduce the AVE to Barcelona by 31 euros, Madrid-Seville by 16.5 euros and Madrid-Valencia by 13 euros, thus capturing 1.5 million additional passengers . And all this without sacrificing the company's margins.

Some margins that have been pressured in recent months by rail liberalization. The competition from the French from Ouigo in the Madrid-Barcelona corridor, which they have been on for a year now, has caused Renfe's revenue per passenger to fall by 18%. A result that caused that between January and April, the income per passenger of all AVE lines decreased by 5% compared to the same period in 2019.

Renfe's costs have also increased sharply due to the rise in the price of electricity. The company has gone from having an energy cost of 78 million in the first quarter of 2019 to 162 million between January and March 2022. More than double.

Despite this, Táboas has ruled out passing on this cost to the passenger, because he "would not accept it" due to current market conditions. The railway operator's forecast is to recover the demand for commercial services (among which is the AVE) in the last quarter of the year. At the moment, leisure trips remain 9.6% below those of 2019 and business trips, 16.5% below.