Transport on the drawing board - trains, buses or drones?

The year 2024 will be remembered in the province of Malaga for a number of reasons. For better or worse, transport and tourism are high on the list of topics of the year.

2024 is a year in which the words coastal train have appeared many times in this newspaper. Indeed a great deal of noise has been made about the desperate need for better public transport along the Costa del Sol. Marbella is the only town with more than 100,000 inhabitants in Spain not to have a train service and other large municipalities such as Estepona and Mijas are also without a rail connection.

The existing Cercanías local line between Malaga and Fuengirola is one of the most used in the country with 16 million passengers last year. With travel subsidised by the government for regular users again this year and ever increasing tourism figures, scenes of crowded local trains are daily, showing the demand.

Much noise has been made, including a petition set up by SUR which attracted 30,000 signatures, and also some progress.

After several meetings of a committee set up including central, regional and local governments, Madrid announced that it would commission a feasibility study for a new railway line between Nerja in the east and Algeciras in the west. The study has a budget of 1.2 million euros and an 18-month completion timeline.

Meanwhile, though, it has been revealed that the government has been doing its homework. The idea being proposed would be to build the new railway line alongside the existing coast motorway, the A-7 wherever possible. A recent study of potential demand showed that 60 million passengers would use the proposed line in a year.

The lack of a decent public transport service on the Costa has made this part of the world the ideal testing ground for new ideas, that is, the drone taxi.

With the absence of a train service, passengers arriving at Malaga airport and heading for Marbella have the option of bus or taxi.

While the long process of building the coastal train is inching forwards, the more futuristic option could well come first. Malaga Airport to Marbella by drone taxi in twelve minutes for less than 100 euros, are the figures announced by the firm Crisalion Mobility which launched its future passenger drone in Malaga in June. Test flights of taxi drones could begin next year with 2030 as a date mentioned for the initiation of a service.

This section this year may well be a copy and paste of last year's with a change in figures. The Costa del Sol has once again broken records, Malaga Airport counting 23.3 million passengers passing through up to the end of November, 11.8 per cent more than in 2023. In these first 11 months of the year the control tower has managed the arrival and departure of 162,993 flights.