High-speed train: “In Spain, competition has not penalized us”, defends Renfe

Renfe AVEs have been serving Madrid and Barcelona from Marseille and Lyon since July 2023. FREE NOON – Ollivier Le Ny

"These are very long processes", says Susana Lozano, development director of the Spanish company Renffe, about the creation of high-speed lines in France. Train paths to be obtained on the tracks, equipment to be approved, staff to be trained, no more than four services have appeared in three years in France, since the liberalization of the market. A drop in the ocean compared to the approximately 700 TGVs that the SNCF runs every day, on average. But the process has been initiated, projects abound.

Renfe has started its France – Spain in July. Are you satisfied ?

305,000 passengers traveled with our services; honestly, we didn’t imagine this at all. We started off timidly with a weekend offer. It was not until October 1 that we increased to 28 trains per week. We carried out marketing operations to publicize our offer, but we never imagined that the response from travelers would be such.

Director of development of the company, Susana Lozano manages the development of Renfe in France. Renfe

What was your average fill rate ?

Up to 75%. Demand during the summer months from French travelers was very high. From October, it was more Spaniards who traveled to France. Around 60% of customers are Spanish, 40% French and other European or third countries.

What is the company considering for this year ?

We are studying, as you know, the possibility of extension to Paris. This means administrative and technical procedures to obtain the necessary certifications and approvals as quickly as possible. The objective is to quadruple our connections, from Paris to Lyon, Marseille, Barcelona and Madrid (via Nîmes Pont-du-Gard and Montpellier Sud de France in particular, Editor's note). We requested timetables from SNCF Réseau. The manufacturer is working in parallel on the approval of the Talgo s-106 that we will use, with official French and European bodies, and we have requested the extension of our safety certificate, between Lyon and Paris.

We should quickly have a precise schedule of when these elements will be brought together, but as soon as Talgo gives us his “OK” for equipment, we will communicate the start date of our services.

Is this new high-speed train running at your place ?

He is approved and will begin his first relationships, in Galicia, in March.

We have demonstrated that we can provide services to Lyon and Marseille, from Spain. We want to continue, to be an operator in competition with SNCF and Trenitalia, as is happening in Spain. For three years, Ouigo has been offering services in the same corridors as Renfe, Iryo (a subsidiary of Trenitalia, Editor's note) as well, and this is a good thing for customers: it favors rail transport. We are convinced that if there is competition, the number of travelers who will use the train will be higher.

How did you react to this rivalry in Spain ?

We have adapted and differentiated. Ouigo is a low-cost product and Renfe has its own low-cost product, Avlo. We studied, in the corridors we share with Ouigo, what services Avlo could offer to stand out. And facing Iryo, what more our AVE offers. It’s not just a question of price, it’s also a matter of quality of service, punctuality, etc.

In Spain, Renfe notably faces Iryo, a subsidiary of Trenitalia. FREE NOON – Ollivier Le Ny

Are your trains as full as before ?

Yes. We closed the year 2023 with a 23% increase in the number of customers.
The competition has not penalized us.

Trenitalia suggests that he will go to Barcelona…

Yes, we know. Let Renfe make Paris – Barcelona, ​​Trenitalia as well and SNCF already offers it, it’s very good. The most important thing is that customers adopt a transport system which is rail. This is the fundamental objective.

Are you planning to go, tomorrow, to Bordeaux, Lille, etc., on the LGV network ?

Yes, there are plans in this direction, medium-term projections, but in all humility, step by step. When our collaboration with SNCF ended in December 2022, we could not imagine being present in Lyon and Marseille six months later.
On the other hand, we will not do low-cost.

The SNCF is silent on its strategy

Present in Spain for three and a half years with Ouigo, the SNCF is hardly forthcoming about its ambitions outside our borders. "All our development projects, replies a company spokesperson, are confidential.&quot ;

In addition to the classic TGV Inoui between Paris and Barcelona, ​​which, "for its first year of operation, recorded one million passengers" , the Spanish Ouigos serve the Catalan capital, Valencia and Alicante, from Madrid. "We plan to go to Seville, in the south, which should arrive at the end of 2024", via the city of Cordoba. Malaga will follow.

In France, SNCF affirms that competing offers have not influenced "on the filling of our trains. The Transport Regulatory Authority noted a 10% increase in supply in Paris – Lyon, which did not result in 10% fewer passengers on our trains." Until the landslide in Maurienne , which has disrupted traffic since August, the company "had never transported so many passengers, between Paris and Milan" , line operated by Trenitalia since the end of 2022.

I subscribe to read more