Barcelona’s Rodalies trains suffered the worst delays of all Spanish commuter networks in September, with late trains arriving an average of 20.3 minutes behind schedule. The figures come from punctuality data that Renfe is publishing for the first time about metropolitan transport.
Across all of Barcelona’s 20,600 services last month, the average delay was 1.1 minutes. This figure includes both delayed and on-time trains. However, for trains that were actually late, the 20.3-minute delay is the lowest since February this year.
Renfe has been publishing punctuality data for its AVE, Avant and Media Distancia trains since June. This Monday marked the first time it released figures for different commuter networks. The data shows delayed trains in Seville arrive 13.3 minutes late on average, Madrid’s late trains hit 11.1 minutes, and Valencia’s delayed services reach 7.8 minutes.
Looking at Barcelona’s situation more closely, Renfe’s monthly data shows less than half of trains, just 47.7%, met their timetable. Punctuality means arriving at stations with less than three minutes’ deviation from the scheduled time. Service reliability reached 96.1%, with the remaining 3.9% representing cancelled or suppressed trains.
September saw 8.7 million passengers use Barcelona’s commuter network. Whilst delays for late trains have improved slightly in recent months, the average for delayed trains sits at 20.3 minutes in September. August recorded 21.1 minutes, July hit a peak of 24.9 minutes, June reached 23.5 minutes, and May returned to 20.4 minutes. The best figure this year came in January, when delayed trains arrived 17.6 minutes late on average.
In absolute terms, considering all September trains regardless of delays, the average drops to 1.1 minutes. Renfe’s data shows 19,635 of the 20,682 services last month arrived punctually or with a maximum five-minute delay. This proportion represents 94.9% of services and rises to 96.7% when including all trains that arrived within 15 minutes of their scheduled time.
At the other extreme, 451 trains reached their destination up to half an hour late. Of these, 235 were delayed by up to one hour.
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