Minister appears to present measures and results

The Minister appeared before the Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda Committee of the Congress to explain the actions carried out by the Department in relation to the health crisis caused by COVID-19, as well as to announce new measures.

A total of 116 measures have been implemented that directly or indirectly affect the transport sector.

The breakdown of the 116 measures adopted is as follows:

• 46 measures in relation to passenger transportation, which pursue a twofold objective:
• On the one hand, the containment of the spread of the virus by reducing the mobility of citizens, in accordance with the guidelines set by the Ministry of Health, which is paradoxical in a Department whose priority objective before the pandemic was precisely the opposite, to facilitate the transport and mobility of citizens. And, on the other hand, to make possible, under appropriate conditions, those movements that are permitted.
• 53 measures in relation to the transportation of goods and professionals, to enable the supply during the time that the State of Alarm is prolonged.
• 17 measures in relation to the economic effect, among which are those related to housing, as we are aware and very conscious that the restrictions imposed for health reasons entail a significant sacrifice of people and companies.

To these measures must be added those that affect the Department's organizational matters and others of a social nature.

A detailed list of all measures can be accessed at this link.

Results obtained so far

The reduction of mobility, in our transportation system has been evolving throughout the weeks of the State of Alarm, taking as a reference the equivalent weeks of 2019.

In the case of railroads, we have a 98% reduction in users and a 90% reduction in commuter trains.

In terms of intercity bus passengers, the reduction is around 97%, and in terms of the number of vehicles circulating on the roads, 80%.

In the case of air traffic, the number of operations in the airport network has also dropped drastically to 94%. Finally, the number of passengers in port traffic fell to 97%.

Mobility in general, very uneven, these Big Data data, from 32% before the state of alarm, we went to a reduction of 61, now a reduction of 55. Mobility has been relaxed as a result of the return of some activities.

The reduction in heavy vehicle traffic is around 30-35% compared to weekdays in 2019.

Next steps

Regarding the next steps, the minister commented that there are three major blocks to move forward on:

• The return to normality, in quotation marks "normality".
• The recovery of the transportation sector, there are modes of transportation that are highly impacted.
• And construction and housing as levers for economic recovery give us a great opportunity for reconstruction.

Return to normality

Measures are proposed in 3 fundamental areas:

1. Increasing supply, studying alternatives among the different modes of transportation and promoting other modes of individual transportation.
2. Demand management through the study of measures that allow us to achieve levels of activity equivalent to those prior to the pandemic, but with lower mobility figures. In this group are measures aimed at reducing demand at source, such as: the decaling of working hours to flatten the peak of rush hours or the establishment of time slots for teleworking staff. And measures aimed at controlling access to the transport system, such as reinforcing access controls at stations.
3. Transportation Safety, through recommendations to users on the use of masks, disinfection of vehicles and terminals, and control of passenger flows.