Page 333 - 360.revista de Alta Velocidad - Nº 6

Perspectives of territorial development linked to the future high-performance rail lines in Eastern
Andalusia.

According to this situation the connection times between Andalusian capitals has been
excessively long, and there is no connection between some of them, for example Jaen-Granada
or Almeria-Algeciras/Cordoba/Jaen/Malaga, as can be seen in the next table 2. As an example,
the previous mixed services existing between Granada and Madrid took 4h. 35min. and the
connection with the regional capital were 3h. 22 min between Granada and Seville and between
Almeria and Seville was prolonged for more than 5 hours.

Table 2. Present rail travel time between Andalusian main cities and Madrid
(hours:minutes).

Algeciras Almeria Antequera Cordoba Granada Jaen Malaga Madrid Seville
Algeciras - - 2:54 3:14 4:20 - 4:00 5:35 4:31

Almeria - 3:40 - 2:23 - - 6:45 5:45
Antequera - 0:37 1:11 - 0:21 2:16 1:29

Cordoba - 2:30 1:33 1:00 1:44 0:45
Granada - - 2:31 4:35 3:22

Jaén - 3:19 3:53 3:00

Málaga - 2:20 1:55
Madrid - 2:20
Seville -

Source: RENFE

2.1 Freight rail transport and logistic situation

As it was indicated in a study about freight transport in the Mediterranean Corridor with traffic
data of 2007, the rail transport mode is extremely weak in this southern area (Cadiz, Malaga
and Granada provinces) with a participation only of 1.5%, against the 4% in the eastern area
(from Murcia to Gerona) (INECO, 2011), and has remained thus over the last decades (Gómez
and Grindlay, 2001). This is a consequence of the lesser development of the rail corridor in
this area and the lesser potential volume of traffic, both due to the reduced distances because
of reduced international traffic and due to its nature, with few minerals, cars or container
flows. However a potential growth in the intermodal transport, and international cars and
agriculture products traffics (INECO, 2011) was considered. However the main rail nodes of the
area, Bobadilla and Moreda, have a limited logistic potential as they are located far from the
high capacity roads and developed areas.
Since the previous regional infrastructures plan with horizon 2013, the regional administration
has promoted the Logistic Andalusian Network with 11 main nodes, 7 with maritime connection
and 10 with rail connection, and latterly they have been incremented to 13, linked to the main
transport axes and consume/production areas (CFV, 2016). However in their development a
great disparity east-west in Andalusia can be observed, as almost all the logistic areas of the
western area have been developed already and the logistic areas of the eastern area are being
developed, as can be seen in the next tables 3 and 4, and in the figure 4.

International Congress on High-speed Rail: Technologies and Long Term Impacts - Ciudad Real (Spain) - 25th anniversary Madrid-Sevilla corridor 331