- The two feasibility studies also include the new variants of access to both cities and the construction of two new high-speed stations in Parla and El Prat.
- Thus, a new access to Madrid Chamartín from the east with a branch to the south will be studied, providing an alternative access to trains from all over the Mediterranean and Andalusia.
- A new direct high-speed section Lleida-Barcelona will be analyzed to solve the lack of capacity of the current section with Tarragona and increase regional services in Catalonia.
- The future high-speed train station in Parla will connect with Cerca and will make it possible to stop the Andalucia-Catalonia transversal trains. It includes the implementation of a high-speed station in El Prat de Llobregat, connected with Rodalies.
The Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility has listed for 2.3 million euros (VAT included) two feasibility studies that aim to analyze actions to improve the Madrid-Barcelona high-speed line (LAV) to increase the speed of this corridor to 350 Km/h and reduce the distance between both cities to less than 2 hours, as announced yesterday Minister Óscar Puente and published today in the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU).
Both studies include new variants of access to both capitals and the execution of two new high-speed stations in Parla and in the Prat de Llobregat. In particular, one of them will analyze in two phases for the improvement of the Madrid-Barcelona-French border LAV and new variants of access to Madrid and Barcelona and, the other, for the viability of the station El Prat de Llobregat AV.
Improvement and increase of the speed in the LAV Madrid-Barcelona
The first phase of the first of the studies will analyze global actions to improve the current LAV Madrid-Barcelona-French Border, aimed at:
- Increase the circulation speed, up to the original design speed of the infrastructure, from 300 to 350 km/h. It takes advantage of the fact that the route is designed for those speeds and a unique Spanish technology is implemented in the world as is the Aerotraviesa.
- Reduce travel times to less than two hours between the different commercial relations of the line, to improve the competitiveness of the rail offer as a whole of the corridor.
- Achieve an increase in capacity, so that the supply of services can be increased in the future, both in the global line and in intermediate relationships.
- To increase, on a widespread basis, the efficiency and reliability of railway operations.
New Access to Madrid Chamartín
A new access to Madrid Chamartín Clara Campoamor is proposed from the east and south, alternative to the existing tunnel that links this station with the Madrid Puerta de Atocha Almudena Grandes. In this way, the capital will be provided with an alternative itinerary to the existing tunnel of trains coming from all over the Mediterranean and Andalusia.
This connection would allow to provide services of the Barcelona – Madrid corridor with origin and/or destination in the Madrid-Chamartín-Clara Campoamor station, without the need to use the tunnel in standard width existing between the Madrid-Puerta de Atocha-Almudena Grandes and Madrid-Chamartín-Clara Campoamor stations.
In this way, the following functional scenarios at the northern end of the variant will be analyzed at least:
- Connection of the LAV Madrid-Barcelona with the LAV Madrid-Valladolid exclusively in the southern direction, towards the northern head of the beach of highways in standard width of the Madrid-Chamartín-Clara Campoamor station.
- Double north-south connection, allowing full interconnection between the corridors of the LAV Madrid-Barcelona and the LAV Madrid-Valladolid, without the need to pass through the Madrid-Chamartín-Clara Campoamor station. This double connection would allow a “north knot” of high-speed access to Madrid to be configured in the future.
Depending on the proposed routes and their feasibility, the following actions could additionally be considered:
- Execution of an intermediate station in the variant that provides service to the airport Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas.
- Closing of the triangle at the southeast end of the variant, by connecting it with the LAV Madrid-Barcelona itself in the southern sense. This connection would allow the provision of services of the LAV Madrid-Seville and the LAV Madrid-Levante to the new “north knot” of Madrid, without the need to circulate through the UIC wide tunnel between Atocha and Chamartín.
New high-speed station in Parla
The study includes a new high-speed station in Parla, connected to the Madrid Neighbourhoods network, which will allow north-south high-speed trains, Andalucia-Catalonia, to have the possibility of stopping in this town in the south of Madrid, which has an area of influence of more than 1.26 million inhabitants and in which, in a range of 15 minutes, 4.7 million people would have access and in less than 1 hour, about 6 million potential users.
This action will have a double purpose
- To have a connection in the surroundings of Madrid for possible AV passing services, without having to rely on the Madrid-Puerta de Atocha-Almudena Grandes or Madrid-Chamartín-Clara Campoamor stations.
- Allow a connection with Madrid for all those services of the LAV Madrid-Seville and the LAV Madrid-Levante, destined for Madrid, in case of possible incidents in the stations or in the tunnel in standard width.
The analysis of this station will be done according to its impact, both in the operation of the LAV Madrid-Seville and the LAV Madrid-Levante, and in the network of Neighbourhoods. Likewise, a demand study will be carried out to determine the potential capture of such a station, based on various traffic and service scenarios to be provided in it.
The new station in Parla will allow to optimize the current node of Torrejón de Velasco, analyzing the feasibility of executing the infrastructures necessary to increase its effective capacity.
It seeks to make possible the simultaneous routing, in the same sense, of services between the LAV corridor Madrid-Seville and Madrid-Chamartín-Clara Campoamor, as well as between the LAV Madrid-Levante and Madrid-Puerta de Atocha-Almudena Grandes.
This action is key not only to improve the current capacity of the node —through which more than 250 trains circulate daily—, but also to absorb the increases in traffic expected with the entry into service of the LAV Madrid–Extremadura–Portuguese Border and the expected growth in the LAV Madrid-Seville.
New direct high-speed section Lleida-Barcelona
The studies also include the construction of a new direct rail access of the LAV Madrid–Barcelona to the northeast of Spain, which allows to provide services from Lleida to and from Barcelona without the need to travel through Camp de Tarragona.
This new access, in addition to significantly saving time, would contribute to alleviating the capacity problems existing in the stretch of line between Camp de Tarragona and Barcelona-Sants, in turn increasing the future traffic coming from the Mediterranean Corridor.
This new section includes an access to the new station of La Sagrera, alternative to the Sants-Sagrera tunnel.
Finally, in a second phase of this feasibility study and once the alternatives for action in each field have been defined and selected, different infrastructure scenarios will be established that will be analyzed from the point of view of demand, functionality and, ultimately, socio-economic profitability, which will be the one that allows to determine the suitability of each of them.
Finally, a comparative study of the analyzed scenarios will be carried out, which allows to select, for each of the areas and for the globality of the same, the best alternative. Once these alternatives are selected, a prioritization of execution will be carried out.
Feasibility study of the El Prat station of Llobregat AV.
The second of the studies focuses on the new station of Prat -AV Airport, which will allow the provision of high-speed commercial services, through its connection with Rodalies services, and will make it possible to link the LAV Madrid–Barcelona–French border with the airport Josep Tarradellas Barcelona-El Prat.
This action could be done taking advantage of the capacity released in the current LAV between Tarragona and Barcelona, to allow regional trains to make a stop in El Prat de Llobregat by adapting the existing PAET, in order to enable this new high-speed station.
This feasibility study will be structured in a single phase and the work to be carried out within the framework of this study will consist, in addition to the analysis of socioeconomic profitability, of the performance of technically viable alternatives, functional analysis of the station, estimation of demand and analysis of the impact on mobility derived from its commissioning, considering the interconnectivity with the services of Neighbourhoods between El Prat de Llobregat and the airport.
Sustainable, Secure and Connected Mobility Strategy 2030
These actions respond to the objectives of the Sustainable, Secure and Connected Mobility Strategy 2030, aimed at improving social cohesion, economic growth and addressing real mobility problems. The railway mode of transport aligns with these objectives and contributes to sustainable mobility from a social, economic and environmental point of view.
Moreover, in 2022 the Ministry approved the Indicative strategy for the development, maintenance and renewal of railway infrastructure, framed in the current legislation of the Railway Sector and whose main mission is to establish a financial framework and priorities of railway planning, establishing a set of basic guidelines aimed at satisfying the future needs of mobility and the financial sustainability of the railway system.