Good news for Spanish rail freight operators. The national rail infrastructure manager Adif will soon reduce track access charges (TAC) for standard-gauge rail freight. Such a measure has been a long-standing demand of the industry association AEFP.
Adif is currently in the final stages of implementing the TAC reduction, reports publication El Mercantil. The updated fees could enter into effect by the end of 2026.
The change will apply to 1,435-millimetre (standard-gauge) railways, where rail operators now pay a higher fee than on the traditional Iberian-gauge railways. This is because Spain considers the standard-gauge railways to be high-performance lines.
Mediterranean Corridor
However, freight does not make use of these high-performance benefits, so the operators in question are, in essence, paying a higher fee and getting nothing in return. “For the last four years, we have been raising this issue with the CNMC [National Markets and Competition Commission], the Ministry, and Adif, because the fees paid by high-speed passenger services do not make sense for freight”, Juan Diego Pedrero, president of the Association of Private Railway Companies (AEFP) is quoted as saying.
If freight were to pay the same fees as high-speed passenger rail, there would not be any freight trains running on those high-performance lines, Pedrero continued. The expectation is that the TAC change will exert a positive effect on rail freight traffic on the Mediterranean Corridor.