Easy-to-remember timetables and "metro-like" frequencies: the Government's plan to revive Rodalies

BarcelonaAchieve the design of services "good for the whole territory" with the infrastructures we currently have –and planned in the short term– and double the number of users: going from the current 455,000 daily travelers to one million passengers by 2040. This is the premise on which the Generalitat has been working for months and which it made public today with the presentation of the first Railway Services Plan of Catalonia, which should allow the critical situation of the Catalan railway network to be revived. This is how the Minister of Territory, Sílvia Paneque, and the Secretary of Mobility and Infrastructures, Manel Nadal, explained it this Tuesday afternoon. "They always tell us that the most orthodox thing would be to design the services first and then the infrastructures; well, we have done it," said Nadal.

This new document or roadmap is added, therefore, to others already existing, such as the 2050 Railway Strategy Plan, which details future planning and the resources that will be needed; or the Commuter Rail Plan, which monitors the execution of works until 2030. In this specific case, the new services plan aims to shake up the existing offer, streamline and reorganize the system in three phases – 2030, 2035, and 2040 – and, at the same time, increase the train kilometers run by 27.8 million: that is, to double the offer. "It is possible, but it is neither free nor automatic," said Paneque, who explained that 182 new trains and the hiring of 419 drivers and 266 inspectors will be needed.

Achieve "metro-type frequencies"

Thus, one of the main pillars of the new plan is to rethink the timetables, routes, and frequencies of commuter, medium-distance, and high-speed rail in Catalonia, as well as how they should relate to public road transport. Paneque explained that they want to implement "regular and repetitive schedules, easy for passengers to remember, along with the improvement and increase of frequencies throughout the network." This translates into repeating cadences and trains that always depart "at the same minute," which makes it easier for users to plan. "Without reliability there is no trust, and that is why this is our priority: it is as easy to say as it is difficult to do," admitted the minister.

In this regard, Paneque detailed that the objective is to reach 15-minute cadences in the densest urban or metropolitan areas, almost "like a metro, so that we understand each other," clarified the head of the department. They also aim to reach 30-minute frequencies on commuter lines and one or two hours for services "that structure the backbone" of mobility in Catalonia – those connecting large cities or cross-border ones – with simple and efficient transfers between conventional trains and high-speed rail, explained the minister. The plan also envisages connecting the Catalan capitals to each other and to their areas of influence with aregulated-price Catalan high-speed network, reorganizing Avant services.

"It is a very ambitious plan, which foresees doubling passengers by 2040, and at the same time very realistic because it takes into account the infrastructure we have, the projects underway, and their timelines," assured Alberto Palacios, the head of planning for the Generalitat's railway services, who detailed that, when fully implemented, the Catalan railway network will go from the current 455,000 daily users to over 600,000 in 2030 and up to one million daily passengers by 2040.

The services document extensively reviews many of the changes that were already announced and planned in the Commuter Plan or the Railway Strategy Plan, such as the extension of various lines, the commissioning of others, or the need to include more trains and drivers. However, in addition to the novelty of scheduled timetables – as other European cities do – new issues are also included or specified, such as, for example, the definition of three categories of service: structural, commuter, and suburban (those closest to the capitals), the creation of large interchange nodes – in Lleida, Sant Vicenç de Calders, Sants, and Maçanet – and the scheduling of all these new services and the necessary resources, both in terms of material, personnel, and also economic resources.

Overturning the train network in three phases

According to the technicians of Territori, the first actions will arrive between next year and 2028. In this period, the main changes would be the extension of the R1 to Cerdanyola Universitat, new semi-direct services on the R2, the entry into service of the new and controversial R-Aeroport and the extension of the RT2 to Vilafranca. The significant change will be noticed in 2030, assured Paneque, coinciding with the end of many of the works of the Rodalies Plan. At that time, the Government foresees that the frequency of the R8 can be doubled and extended to Vilafranca, the new regional line R88 can be created between Reus and Girona via Vallès, and the offer of Avant services can be expanded.

Until 2035, efforts will focus on consolidating a train every 30 minutes on the R11 and R15, increasing the frequencies of the R13 and R14 to one train per hour per section, reinforcing the RG1 to Sant Celoni, and continuing to improve the Catalan high-speed network.

Finally, by 2040, there will be more "structural" changes. The plan highlights three major works: the extension of the R-Aeroport line to Terrassa, the total doubling of the R3, the entry into service the first phase of the new orbital line R9 between Terrassa and Granollers and the extension of the R11 to Barcelona-El Prat airport. "It is not a leap into the void, it is a thought-out, programmed and gradual change," defended the minister. However, some platforms that attended the presentation reproached the Government that the new service plan is born without a clear detail of economic allocations and how the resources will be obtained to carry out all these projects.