The Ministry of Public Works has serious problem with the Renfe train lines. Mid-distance routes are not profitable and are under close examination at this time. At the least, 15 long-distance routes that the company offers, equal to a third of total routes, are carrying less than 250 passengers per day and, in certain cases, they are running four routes daily (two going and two returning). This waste cannot be allowed to spoil further the government's already ailing public accounts.
According to data published by Ferropedia (Renfe Operadora does not make public data associated with lines other than the big high-velocity routes) and using a typical working day as a reference, there are routes like the one between Madrid and Gijón that in 2011 recorded a record minimum of passengers: 95,384.
Demand higher for buses
Despite the fact that on average 261.32 passengers travel between Madrid and Gijón, Renfe Operadora continues to run four routes daily, which translates into 65 people per train. This is hardly more than the number of a passengers that a regular bus route carries.
Data in this area are not too worrisome from the perpective of the Observatorio, a detailed report that the Foundation of Spanish Railways (FFE following the Spanish acronym) publishes annually. Data from the latest report were made public last February and refer to the 2010 fiscal year. In that year, average capacity for each train was 297 seats, but the average occupancy only reached 177.44 passengers. This means that trains were running at less than 60% of full capacity.
