Alta Velocidad Española (AVE)[a] is a high-speed rail service operated by Renfe, the Spanish State railway company.
Main station(s) | Madrid Atocha, Barcelona Sants, Seville-Santa Justa, Zaragoza–Delicias |
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Other station(s) | Madrid Chamartín, Valencia-Joaquín Sorolla, Málaga-María Zambrano, Granada, Alicante Terminal, Valladolid-Campo Grande, A Coruña-San Cristóbal, Santiago de Compostela railway station, Ourense, Córdoba |
Fleet size | 24 S-100 16 S-102 26 S-103 30 S-112 |
Stations called at | 30 |
Parent company | Renfe |
Technical | |
Track gauge | Standard (1435 mm) |
Electrification | 25 kV AC (some sections on 3 kV DC network) |
Length | 3,966 km (2,464 mi)[1] |
Other | |
Website | https://www.renfe.com |
The first AVE service was inaugurated in 1992, with the introduction of the first Spanish high-speed railway connecting the cities of Madrid, Córdoba and Seville.
In addition to Renfe's use of the Administrador de Infraestructuras Ferroviarias-managed rail infrastructure in Spain, Renfe offers two AVE services partially in France, connecting respectively Barcelona-Lyon and Madrid-Marseille.[2]
Alta Velocidad Española translates to "Spanish High Speed", but the initials are also a play on the word ave, meaning "bird". AVE trains operate at speeds of up to 300 km/h (186 mph).[3][4]
As of 2024[update] Renfe offers the following AVE services:[5]
The central hub of the AVE system is Madrid's Puerta de Atocha, except for the Madrid–León, Madrid–Burgos, Madrid–Galicia, Madrid–Alicante and Madrid-Murcia lines, that terminate at Chamartín station.[7][8]
Currently, there are several series of high-speed trains that run the AVE service:
The still-growing network transported a record 21.3 million passengers in 2018.[9] Though the network length is extensive, it lags in ridership behind comparable high-speed rail systems in Japan, France, Germany, China, Taiwan, and Korea.
2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
4.878 | 5.559 | 11.461 | 11.250 | ||||||
2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 |
10.851 | 12.563 | 12.101 | 14.697 | 17.967 | 19.428 | 20.352 | 21.108 | 21.332 | 22.370 |
2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 | 2027 | 2028 | 2029 |
7.603 | 12,282 | 23,562 |