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Mobility figures for Malaga city and its surrounding metropolitan area are pretty staggering when put in black and white, giving a real sense of the true dimensions of this metropolis whose activity and population are soaring. Without going into further detail, the headline statistic is that the province grew by 14,402 residents last year to 1.79 million people and, of those 1.79m, 14,005 were born in other countries. Moreover, when it comes to public transport to support the population growth, there is a potential risk of collapse due to certain projects being long overdue.
The coastal train, the improvement of traffic between Rincón de la Victoria, Malaga city and Torremolinos, the extension of the metro and the new map of intercity bus concessions, to mention but a few. These are projects with many years still to go. The only ones on the short-term horizon are the arrival of the suburban train to the Civil Hospital and the bus-VAO (multi-occupancy vehicles) lane on the Guadalhorce motorway (A-357).
To describe it more visually, we could say that Malaga is starting to burst at the seams. This is illustrated by the fact that 2024 ended with a new record in public transport for Malaga: almost 120 million journeys by bus, metro, Cercanías, taxi and VTC (private hire taxi). However, it would have been logical to expect that this would have contained the use of private vehicles. Nothing could be further from the truth: motorway access to the city averaged 252,279 journeys each day. This is 12,533 more cars than the previous year, according to data from Spain's Directorate-General for Traffic (DGT).
However, inner-city traffic on the provincial capital's 60 main streets has added another 14,000 cars. During the last four-month period, the city council's mobility department counted 722,032 journeys on a working day (707,966 in 2023).
Turning to the count for other modes of transport, EMT city buses exceeded 50 million passengers, the metro transported 18 million passengers, Cercanías handled 17 million passengers, intercity buses saw 12 million users and taxis and VTCs exceeded four million clients between them. A good example of all this growth is the final tally for users of the Consorcio de Transportes travel card that has exceeded 26 million journeys, an increase of 37%. There are two important elements to this: the fact that Cercanías has finally joined this multimodal ticket and also the undeniable attraction of the subsidies provided by central and regional governments and municipal authorities. When the subsidies come to an end in June, the question remains as to whether there will be a drop in passenger use.
What is clear is that there is a demand for quality public transport, something that has indisputable figures. The data handled by the Ministry of Transport in the initial studies into extending the coastal train indicate that a service between Nerja and Algeciras would transport around 60 million passengers a year. In the central section, between Malaga city and Estepona, there would be 46 million passengers. These figures are close to those of the study carried out a year ago by consultancy firm ARCS at the request of Malaga city council, the provincial diputación authority and the Unicaja Foundation. Such numbers are crying out for competitive mobility solutions.
Malaga's metro also set several milestones in 2024. Firstly, the almost 18.3 million passengers recorded are the highest ever total since its inauguration a decade ago. Data from the Consejería de Fomento (the ministry for public works in the Junta) reflect an increase of 34.2%, making it the fastest growing metro system in Andalucía.
Furthermore, this means that the forecast made back in 2004, when demand studies justified its suitability, has been exceeded for the very first time. Now every month there are more than one million passengers and last October there were close to two million passengers.
This figure has been made possible by two factors: the first is the fact that lines 1 and 2 have reached the city centre, which is the most popular destination (Atarazanas and Guadalmedina stations). Secondly, it is due to the reduction in ticket prices, thanks to a joint contribution from both central and regional governments, which still amounts to 50%.
You only have to see how they run to understand that the Cercanías on lines C1 (Costa) and C2 (Guadalhorce) have smashed all records, boosted by the fact that these services are free of charge. In the last financial year a total of 17,128,000 passengers used them, most of them along the Costa del Sol. This is an increase of 6.6% compared to 2023, which was the previous best year ever, according to the Ministry of Transport in Madrid.
This 6.6% translates into more than one million passengers (1,061,000 to be precise) who have taken this train service over the last 12 months. It goes without saying that this is one of the most profitable services in Spain, not only for work and studies, but also for tourists and leisure purposes. It is also by far the service that transports more passengers in Andalucía.
This record-breaking news comes in the midst of the debate on the coastal train and the need for a rail service connecting the province and the neighbouring Campo de Gibraltar from end to end, that is, from Nerja to Algeciras. Just this last week it has been announced that 15 companies, including international firms, have submitted their candidatures to carry out the feasibility study for this infrastructure.
EMT city buses closed the year with 50.6 million passengers. This is by far the best figure ever. Once again, it is clear that the different modes of public transport are not in competition with each other, but rather that they add to and feed off each other. Between the metro and the bus, almost 69 million passengers travelled last year.
Almost every month the number of users exceeds 4,000,000, and the best ever monthly figure has been reached on four occasions: April (4,255,321), May (4,46,617), August (4,523,169) and October (4,631,095).
There is still a lack of exclusive bus lanes, with the exception of the lane that the Junta is building between the A-357 and the entrance to Malaga city. Moreover, there are still five years to go before a map of concessions can be drawn up with new, more modern lines adapted to the reality of the demographics and employment trends and locations. At least the renewal of concessions has been welcome, as most of them had expired and had prevented operators from having the necessary legal security to improve the service.
All in all, the good work of the Consorcio de Transportes del Área Metropolitana (Malaga city's local public transport consortium) has made it possible for intercity bus users to increase by almost 2 millions during the last year, which closed at 11.92 million journeys.
The sector is experiencing a paradox, as there are fewer and fewer bus companies in the province (120 compared to 150), although Malaga represents around 25% of the coach transport sector in Andalucía. The local fleet has also fallen by 2.2% (from 1,159 buses to 1,133).
However, employment has risen to around 1,175 jobs (in 2023 it was 1,000), according to Antonio Vázquez Olmedo, president of the employers' associations Apetam (in Malaga) and Fedintra (for all Andalucía). This means that competitiveness has increased, although the number of passengers has fallen by 6.8% to around 8 million users a year.
Taxis operate a bit like families as they belong to different cooperatives and associations and all of them have seen growth of up to 15%, which means some 2.5 million journeys in the last year, according to sources in the sector on the coast. "Especially on the most important dates such as Easter, ferias, football matches and basketball games, conferences, cruises and Christmas, thanks to the recovery of some customers who are already familiar with the dynamic fares of VTC applications", they said. Added to this is the increased activity at Malaga Airport and the railway stations.
For their part, Unitaxi estimates a slight improvement of 1.5% in demand and just over two million passengers. However, they warn that the start of 2025 is proving to be very weak. Meanwhile, the Taxi Unión cooperative puts the growth rate a little higher at 3% to 4%. Also they view competition with VTCs as one of the keys to a moderate rise.
The Andalusian VTC business association told SUR that in 2024 an average of 1 million services were provided per month on the Costa del Sol. The months of July and August saw the highest demand and in February and March the number of transfers dropped. This average would add 12 million travellers to the overall map of people's travels in the province.
The DGT's annual report is an objective account of the frustration of many drivers. Motorway journeys into Malaga city break all records, exceeding 252,279 movements each day. This figure represents an increase of 12,533 vehicles in a single year, up 5.23%. The biggest problem occurs on the roads between Rincón de la Victoria and Malaga city. This road connection between town and city was inaugurated in 2003, although the eastern ring road of the city later added a third lane. In this time the number of residents has shot up, but the roads carrying them are the same.
The other Malaga city access roads are not far behind in becoming an issue too: if entering from the west from Torremolinos, back in 2004 there were 115,410 vehicles per day, but last year closed with 125,007. In the last 12 months alone there were 5,930 more cars on that road. Traffic coming from inland Malaga to the city has also grown, showing that many people work in Malaga but have moved to other municipalities and now commute. It is a sociological reality. In 2024, 4,045 vehicles were added to the access roads from the north (now 50,394 per day).
The provincial capital's arterial roads are also showing signs of over-capacity. Neither is it just in terms of weekday intensities, (722,000 daily movements Monday to Friday), but traffic has also increased on the weekends. With this current state of play, it is hardly surprising that the people of Malaga are justified in their growing demand for an improved transport infrastructure.
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