The Madrid Regional Transport Consortium celebrates its 25th anniversary

The Madrid Regional Transport Consortium (CRTM, Consorcio Regional de Transportes de Madrid1) was founded by the Community of Madrid Act in May 1985, and started work in March 1986 to coordinate the infrastructure and services of the different public transport modes in the region as the Public Transport Authority of the Community of Madrid. The CRTM was a forefront organisation in Spain and its example has been a reference point for various transit authorities that have been set up following the CRTM model.

The secret of our success

The key to CRTM’s successful management is having achieved a triple integration: administrative, modal and fare. Since its creation, the Board of CRTM consists of 20 representatives, mostly from government agencies such as the Community of Madrid (5 seats), the capital’s Municipality (5 seats), the 178 remaining municipalities in the region (3 seats) and the General State Administration (2 seats). There are also representatives of private transport companies (2 seats), trade unions (2 seats) and user and consumer associations (1 seat).

The key to its effectiveness lies in having achieved coordination among multiple agencies and institutions – both public and private – which have allowed us to streamline and optimise the planning of infrastructure and public transport policies, and to also unify tickets and fares, and enhance the system’s image and information, etc.

A national and international touchstone

At a global level, CRTM is the regional transportation authority that coordinates the management of the underground system (12 lines, 285km and 238 stations), bus lines in the municipality of Madrid (215 lines and 2,100 buses) and in the 38 urban municipalities in the region (127 lines and 302 buses), trunk lines between municipalities in the region (348 lines and 1,801 buses), light-rail and tram lines (4 lines and 35.5km) and suburban railway (8 lines and 386.6km), although this last operator is not a member of CRTM, it has a fare integration agreement with it and it forms part of the public transport supply.

The territorial structure of the Madrid region

The spatial and demographic structure of a region determines its transport management model. Metropolitan population is located in several rings around the capital and both radial and transverse mobility flows are increasingly complex.

The region has 6.5 million inhabitants in an area of 8,028km2, of which half (3.27 million) are in the municipality of Madrid – a municipality with a high extension (606km2) which has yet to make available some of its land for development and which has the ability to accommodate half a million more people.

In recent years, particularly in the period between 2000 and 2008, before the outbreak of the economic crisis, Madrid welcomed over one million new residents, most of them immigrants from outside Spain. A large proportion of them were located in peripheral neighbourhoods, mainly in the metropolitan area.

Work that has paid off

The ambitious transport infrastructure and service plans launched in the last 15 years in the Region of Madrid would not have been possible without integrated management and planning. Since then, in addition to ensuring the development of an integrated public transport system, the CRTM has also consolidated its role as a planning body for infrastructure and services. In fact, it is now considered an example of good practice for other regions around the world. It is difficult to highlight just a small number of actions in recent years that have led to a change in the mobility of our region, but given the choice, we would draw attention to the following:

• The rapid introduction of an integrated fare system, created around the Travel Pass as a ticket allowing multiple trips for different zones and valid for all transport modes. This ticket was the beginning of a change in how the inhabitants of the region used their mobility. Today it is used in two out of every three journeys by public transport, and its general acceptance level is large, so that every month nearly 25% of the inhabitants of the region have one of these passes in their pocket. But also important is the penetration of travel passes for senior citizens, that is for people aged 65 and above. Extremely affordable, at €10.90/month, 50% of people aged 65 to 80 in the region buy a Senior Citizen’s travel pass every month.
• The different underground extensions, nearly all developments have been subterranean under extremely controlled costs but of very high quality and functionality. These have often been initiatives undertaken by the different political rulers of the region, so that its various extensions have been subject to the duration of the different terms of office. Thus, four years have been a clear timetable for the various expansion plans, providing enough time to undertake projects, contract works, build and open them – 50km extensions and more have been undertaken in the four-year period of several political terms.
• The suburban train network, without being too large, allows all lines to have a high frequency and to cross through the centre of the city of Madrid, through several tunnels, giving different options to connect to underground and bus networks at various stations, thus strengthening metropolitan mobility.
• Major transport interchanges with metropolitan, regional and intercity buses, well connected to the Madrid access motorways and to the urban underground and bus network. These interchanges, like airports, act as underground transport hubs between all modes of public transport. Currently there are five of these interchanges, operating under PPP (publicprivate participation) schemes that, for our users, represents a better understanding of metropolitan mobility and facilitates it.
• The Madrid bus network is greener and more efficient every day, with more than 500 CNG (compressed natural gas) buses out of a total fleet of 2,100 and a commitment to new technologies, such as Automatic Vehicle Monitoring Systems (AVMS), but also with real-time information being made available to the user, by way of SMS, panels at bus stops, web and mobile applications, etc.
• Recently there has been a return to Madrid of modern streetcars as light-rail systems, with four very different functional lines, under three concession schemes for investment and exploitation.
• Finally we must highlight the private companies that provide service trunk lines, the so-called green coloured buses, 29 private companies that are regulated under 31 public service management contracts. These companies are now working towards a modernisation plan, which will introduce AVMS’s, real-time information, contactless ticketing and service quality as one of the central axes which will affect the franchise revenue.

On every mode of transport we have always been very aware of our travellers’ accessibility, and today we have a fully accessible bus network, while on the underground and suburban lines all stations built in the last 20 years are fully accessible. This leads to a high accessibility rate, and we are carrying forward plans to extend improved accessibility to older stations.

A task both for the present and the future

Regardless of its successes to date, CRTM is convinced that a modern, dynamic society requires an on-going commitment to sustainable mobility, always looking for new solutions to current and future problems. In this regard, as proof that the work we have undertaken is correct, public transport usage has increased by 60.8% over these last 20 years – a rate which is almost double the population increase in Madrid over the same period.

Additionally, the distribution of different modes of transport within the entire region can be considered to be quite balanced – almost one third of global mobility is distributed between each mode of transport – walking, public transport and private vehicles, so that two out of three trips are sustainable. This ratio is more relevant if we consider only the mobility in the city of Madrid itself, although it is a big city, internal mobility is sustainable for three out of every four journeys.

These figures highlight the good mobility of Madrid when compared to other major European metropolitan areas, as the EMTA Barometer2, even when considering the excellent road network available to the Community of Madrid.

The economic crisis, a difficult context

Today the transport system is being continually improved, renewing the train and bus fleets, introducing a Modernisation Plan of metropolitan and regional bus services that will incorporate new technologies to upgrade service quality and expanding the rail network (within the Ministry of Development’s Madrid Suburban Rail Plan). Another two important activities must be added to these actions:

• The creation of the Centre for Integrated Transport of Madrid (CITRAM) in which information from different operators can be integrated and managed.
• Position the CRTM as an agency of mobility, in respect of issues related to sustainable mobility with the 179 municipalities in our region and enhancing the role of CRTM to audit new urban developments, promoting the integration of mobility with urban and regional planning.

Finally, in a time of such deep economic crisis, public transport must be adapted to this situation. CRTM needs to reduce transport supply in order to meet the budgetary constraints of the government of the Community of Madrid.

In summary, during the past 25 years, the CRTM has been providing an efficient response to the various challenges that have arisen in Madrid in relation to mobility.

With the creation of CRTM in May 1985, a new management scheme was put into effect and for the following quarter of a century we have managed to transform mobility in the Community of Madrid, so that today we have a well-balanced mobility, despite the high economic growth the region has undergone, and the citizens of the Community of Madrid rightly consider their transportation system as something to be proud of.

References

1. www.crtm.es 2. www.emta.com

About the Author

José-Dionisio González is a Civil Engineer and holds a Master in Science in Transport Engineering and a Master in Infrastructures Financing. He is currently the Director of Consorcio Regional de Transportes de Madrid (CRTM) and is a Member of UITP Policy Board.