Competence warning to Renfe: it must allow Iryo to repair trains in its workshops

BarcelonaCompetition has warned Renfe and established that it must open its workshops in La Sagra, Toledo, to the competitor operator in high-speed Iryo to be able to carry out the maintenance of its trains. The National Commission of Markets and Competition (CNMC) has partially upheld Iryo's complaint about access to Renfe's heavy maintenance facilities. As the supervisory body communicated this Tuesday, Renfe Mantenimiento must allow Iryo's trains access to the workshop for the disassembly and assembly of their bogies.

The CNMC has resolved the complaint filed by Iryo regarding the denial of access for its rolling stock to Renfe's heavy maintenance workshops and has concluded that the public company rejected it just a few days before the planned start of operations and "without sufficient objective justification".

The organization explains that Renfe Mantenimiento offered heavy maintenance services to the market and after having negotiated with Iryo for more than 18 months the conditions of access for this operator's trains to the workshops and the provision of maintenance services, it communicated that it would not provide them "just two weeks before the start of operations", "without sufficient objective justification and without having followed the protection procedures".

The CNMC states that this withdrawal of the offer by Renfe left Iryo "without viable alternatives to carry out" the heavy maintenance of its trains on time, "with the consequent risk of immobilization". Thus, it considers that this immobilization would "prevent it from complying" with its capacity reservation commitments with the infrastructure administrator and "would impact the plurality of transport services offered" to users.

For this reason, the CNMC now requires Renfe Mantenimiento to "facilitate access" for Iryo trains to the La Sagra workshop "on the terms previously negotiated by the parties and without prejudice to both parties reaching an alternative solution by mutual agreement".

Not all trains

However, it clarifies that this obligation is limited to the 19 trains subject to negotiations and does not oblige Renfe to provide bogie maintenance services at the Valladolid workshop, as it has been proven that Iryo "has alternatives" to carry out these operations.

Nor does it uphold Iryo's claim that Renfe should facilitate access to its facilities for the self-service execution of all operations associated with the R2 intervention of the operator's trains, since Renfe Mantenimiento's offer "did not include this element", it adds.

Finally, the public body explains that heavy maintenance of rolling stock is a "critical" activity for railway companies, because failing to do it within the deadline can lead to trains being immobilized. Furthermore, it recalls that regulations oblige heavy maintenance service providers to offer them to all operators in a "transparent and non-discriminatory" manner, once they offer them on the market.

In the face of incompatible requests, it continues, the provider "must try to accommodate them, entering into negotiations with the operators and maximizing workshop capacity, and only if this is not possible, apply objective prioritization criteria to allocate capacity".