The INE data confirms the worst start to the year for Spanish high speed since the pandemic. Between January and April, the number of travelers on AVE, Avlo, Iryo and Ouigo It decreased by 19.6% compared to the same period in 2025going from 13.75 to 11.06 million passengers. The collapse comes after the Adamuz accident on January 18 and the numerous outages and breakdowns that the railway network is suffering these months.
Adamuz has been a turning point. The train accident that occurred on January 18 in the Cordoba town of Adamuz, which claimed the lives of 46 people, caused the immediate cutting of the corridor between Madrid and Andalusia for several weeks. Furthermore, the tragedy led Adif to impose multiple temporary speed limitations (LTV) at different points of the network, after the train drivers denounced the poor state of the infrastructure.
The result was longer travel times, poorly functioning services and sub-par punctuality.
Month by month. February was the worst month. And the number of high-speed travelers plummeted by 32% compared to February 2025, according to INE data. In March the drop was 18% and in April, 15%, despite the arrival of Easter (where there is normally a great demand). The accumulated figure for the first four months of 2026 is even lower than that of the same period in 2024, when 11.63 million travelers were registered.
A second runner out of commission. After the closure of the corridor affected by Adamuz, another blow was added: the Madrid-Málaga corridor was disabled for four months due to the detachment of a slope at the height of Álora (Málaga), caused by the intense rains that fell in Andalusia at the beginning of the year. Service was not restored until April 30.
Punctuality. Beyond the cuts, high speed in Spain too has a punctuality problem. And according to him AVE and Renfe long distance punctuality reportonly 46.9% of trains arrived less than five minutes late during this period. In the Madrid-Barcelona corridor, the operators had to remove the last train of the day to avoid it coinciding with the maintenance slots, a direct consequence of the LTV. Just like account La Razón, Adif also extended travel times by 25 minutes in that corridor to facilitate conservation tasks.
Other transport. The fall in high speed has not ended up being transferred to public transport as a whole. And it is that according to INE datain April, intercity bus grew by 4.7% and air transport by 3.2%, while urban transport (metro and city bus) rose by 8.4%, with the metro growing by almost 10%. Maritime, on the other hand, fell 11.2%.
The sign of recovery. Despite the bad start to the year, there are signs that demand is picking up. The Trainline comparator points out that ticket prices are rising, with Madrid-Barcelona routes 9% more expensive compared to the summer of 2025, as a sign that demand is reactivated. Its general director in Europe, Pedro García, counted to El Mundo that predicts a “super promising” summer for the train, also supported by aid from the program Young Summer of the Ministry of Transportation and in the effect of railway liberalization since 2020, which has reduced the cost of routes such as Madrid-Málaga or Madrid-Valladolid by more than 50% compared to 2019.
The underlying problem. What the Adamuz accident has highlighted is the fragility of a network that, in words from Trainline’s own Pedro García, needs investment to be able to compete with other European countries. The constant growth in passengers that the Spanish high speed had been registering (42% more since liberalization, according to Trainline) came to a halt in January, and recovering that trend will depend above all on the speed in the repair of the infrastructure as well as the confidence that travelers regain in the system.
Cover image | Renfe
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