The liberalization of the high-speed rail market in Spain in 2020 led to an increase in passenger numbers compared with its competitor: air travel. Airlines responded to this increased competition by reducing seat capacity by between 10% and 16%, while maintaining flight frequencies in order to preserve connectivity through their hub airports. This is the main conclusion of an article written by researchers from the University of Barcelona, the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya
The article explains how the European Union supports high-speed rail as a sustainable form of transport and how market liberalization can help promote its development. Spain is one of the few countries where this measure has been implemented. In 2020, the market was opened to competition on the main high-speed rail corridors: Madrid-Barcelona, Madrid-Valencia, Madrid-Alicante, Madrid-Seville and Madrid-Málaga. As a result, both the supply of services and passenger demand increased. On these routes, the frequency rose from 78 to 115 journeys a day and the number of seats increased by 60% (from around 24 million in 2019 to around 37 million in 2023). As for demand, it rose by up to 45% (from around 20 million passengers in 2019 to over 30 million in 2023).
These positive results of liberalization increased the market share of high-speed rail to over 80% on most routes compared with air travel on those routes where the two modes compete. Airlines responded to this competition by reducing seating capacity, replacing some aircraft models with others of lower capacity. However, flight frequency remained unchanged.
"The significant increase in high-speed rail services in Spain following liberalization has not led to a reduction in the number of flights," the three authors of the article conclude. They are Daniel Albalate, director of the Observatory for the Analysis and Evaluation of Public Policy at the UB; Albert Gragera, professor from the Department of Applied Economics at the UAB; and Pere Suau, head of the Sustainability, Management and Transport Research Group ( SUMAT ), affiliated with the Digital Transformation and Governance Research Centre ( UOC-DIGIT ), and professor of Economics and Business Studies.
