TURNOVER at Spanish high-speed infrastructure manager Adif AV was up 19.3% in 2021 at €390.6m, driven by a 22.8% increase in train-km operated on its network following the relaxation of travel restrictions imposed in March 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Income from track access charges, the company’s principal source of revenue, was up 21.7% at €326.3m. Charges for the use of stations and other infrastructure were up 8% year-on-year at €63.7m.

Greater income and a cost control programme enabled Adif AV to report Ebitda of €58.7m in 2021, a return to positive results following a loss of €8.5m in 2020. The net result in 2021 was a loss of €425.4m, an improvement on the loss of €460.8m reported in 2020.

The Spanish high-speed network recorded a total of 45 million train-km in 2021, with the largest year-on-year increase reported on the route from Madrid to Valladolid, León and Zamora (38.8%).

On the route from Madrid to Barcelona and the French border, train-km grew by 32%, and from Madrid to Valencia and Alacant by 31.9% year-on-year.

The Adif AV network currently stands at 3762km, used by an average of 783 trains a day. The 46 stations managed by the company had been used by 98 million passengers by the close of the 2021 financial year.

Despite the poor economic climate caused by the pandemic, Adif AV reports that its tendering activity in 2021 was “intense,” resulting in the award of 394 contracts worth a total of €1.9bn, up significantly from the €476.3m of contracts awarded in 2020.

Investment in new high-speed lines totalled €1.1bn in 2021, including €174.6m spent on the Vitoria - Bilbao - San Sebastián Basque Y project, €164.5m for Madrid - Extremadura and €87.6m for the Murcia - Almería project.

Adif AV spent a total of €78.5m on the new underground standard-gauge link between Chamartín and Atocha stations in Madrid, associated work at Chamartín and capacity enhancements between Atocha and Torrejón de Velasco. The Madrid - Galicia project received €68.9m in 2021.

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