In a recent article in Via Empresa, Joan Amorós, president of Ferrmed, highlighted the concerning situation of the Mediterranean Corridor. Two decades after the creation of this influential Brussels-based lobby and its inclusion in the main trans-European Core Network, the share of rail in freight transport in Spain remains a modest 4%, significantly below the European Union's 18%.
“"The participation of rail in freight transport is not growing (18% EU, 4% Spain)."
Amorós emphasized that a primary cause of this deficiency is the lack of clear investment priorities in the network. To make the corridor an effective reality, it is crucial to separate passenger and freight transport. He illustrated this need by comparing the situation to Paris, where mixing passenger and freight trains would be unthinkable, despite the Barcelona and Tarragona logistics hub being more powerful than that of Île-de-France.
To address this issue in Catalonia, Amorós proposed two solutions: constructing two additional tracks between Barcelona and Tarragona, passing through Penedès, or establishing a new connection linking Cervera, Igualada, and northern Martorell.
Recently, Joan Amorós i Pla (Vila-sacra, 1938) himself delivered a conference in Barcelona, as part of a senior engineers' luncheon and colloquium. During the event, he also presented the foundations of the Gaudí Movement, a think tank aiming to project the architect's values into 21st-century society, coinciding with the commemoration of the Sagrada Família's architect.
The session also touched upon the French government's role in its section of the Mediterranean Corridor, where the Montpellier-Perpignan duplication and the Lyon bypass are also experiencing delays. The importance of European institutions in accelerating the project and improving the continent's economic efficiency was highlighted, with the goal of rail transport reaching 30% of the total, a figure still far off.
