La Red de Alta Velocidad Europea: Más un mosaico poco efectivo que una realidad

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and its competitors (air transport, conventional rail and road transport). We concluded that
total travel time and price level are both important factors for success. Combined with
effectively regular services, these factors could allow high-speed rail to increase its market
share. Intermodal competition is fierce, and it affects the sustainability of high-speed lines:
high-speed rail does not compete on an equal basis with other transport modes.
IX. We assess sustainability of the EU co-funding to be at risk. Judging by a benchmark, a
high-speed line should ideally have nine million passengers per year to be successful.
However, on three of the seven completed high-speed lines we audited, the number of
passengers carried was far lower. The infrastructure cost of these lines was 10.6 billion euro,
to which the EU provided around 2.7 billion euro. This means that there is a high risk of
ineffective spending of EU co-funding on these lines. Our assessment of the number of
people living in the catchment areas of the audited lines indicates that nine of the 14 audited
lines and cross-border connections did not have enough potential passengers to be
successful. These include the three lines indicated above carrying a lower number of
passengers compared to the benchmark of nine million.
X. In 2010, we issued a report calling for urgent action to lift all technical, administrative
and other barriers to rail interoperability. However, we found that these barriers still persist
in 2018. The rail passenger market is not open in France and Spain. There is on-track
competition in Italy and, to a limited extent, in Austria; in these Member States, services
were more frequent and of higher quality, whereas ticket prices were lower. Integrated
ticketing systems, and greater attention paid to monitoring and standardising customer
satisfaction and punctuality data, could further improve the passenger experience.
XI. For a successful continuation of EU co-funding for high-speed rail infrastructure in the
next programming period, we recommend that the Commission should take a number of
steps. These include:
(i)
carrying out realistic long-term planning; and agreeing with the Member States the
key strategic stretches to be implemented first, with close monitoring and
enforceable powers to ensure that commitments to complete the core EU highspeed
rail network are respected;