Adif spent only 30% of 2.8-billion-euros allocated to improve Spain's regional rail network last year

Adif has only spent 30% of the money allocated to improve Spain’s regional train network, new figures show.

The state-owned rail infrastructre operator had a total budget of 2.832-billion-euros to invest in the network last year, but only executed 30% of it, according to latest Adif data on its 2022 budget.

Andalucía was the region where the highest proportion of the budget was not spent, with just 8.4% of the 655 million allocated used. In Murcia only 11% of the budget was used, from the 13.6 million allocated.

Cercanías local train services in the Basque Country also had an allocated budget of 75.6 million, but only 10.8 million was used up.

Also below the national average were the lines in Castilla-La Mancha, where only 20% of the budget was spent, Catalonia (21%) and the Community of Madrid (28%).

It comes as more people use Spain’s Cercanías local trains following the government’s approval on 1 September last year of free state rail transport for frequent users.

Latest data published by Spain's national statistics institute (INE) for March showed a total of 55.3 million people travelled on Cercanías trains, 28% more than in March of the previous year.

A total of 470 million people used the local trains in 2022, some 29% more than in 2021.