The Works Committee (CT) of CP — Comboios de Portugal, stated this Tuesday that the compensation planned by the Government, of 18.9 million euros, to compensate the operator for the new green railway pass “will not be enough to guarantee the offer”. .
In a statement about the creation of this title, which will cost 20 euros per month and about the rest of the mobility package announced last week, CT states that the announced compensation does not “clarify whether it will lead to incorporation into the Public Service.” Contract (CSP) concluded between the State and the CP.”
“We remember that CP was fined 15% of its positive result for 2023 for breach of the aforementioned contract”Indian.
“If the Governments were fined for not complying with the State’s part in the CSP, the fine would be much higher, since according to the CP Report and Accounts of 2023, not only was the payment of Public Service Obligations (OSP) missing ) corresponding to 2022, as well as those owed for the rebalancing of the contract relating to the years 2021 and 2022,” the entity also criticized.
According to CT, “the compensation for the National Rail Pass that came into effect on August 1, 2023 and was sold until October 2024, was never paid and its value is never known”.
“For this new pass, will 18.9 million be enough?” he asked, indicating that the study that supports that value is unknown.
“We run the risk of affirming with a high degree of certainty that no one, neither in CP nor in the Government, will know how to respond, for the simple reason that rail transport is not air transport,” he stressed, recalling that “CP only knows the Origin/destination demand, the number of tickets sold, which means that no one knows if 100 trips purchased in a year on a given Intercidades route correspond to one passenger who bought 100 trips, to two who bought 50 each, or to five who They bought 20 trips.”
The CT pointed out that in the case of “nominal and non-transferable” tickets (one pass per passenger), there is no data that allows determining what the loss of box office revenuealthough we estimate that there is massive adoption of the new pass by occasional passengers.”
The Commission warned about the effect on the sale offer of this pass, particularly in the case of Intercidades. “A passenger traveling between Pombal and Coimbra blocks a seat for a passenger who wishes to travel between Lisbon and Guimarães, since that seat is considered occupied for part of the route,” he said, recalling that until now “passengers on short trips were driven by rate differences to choose the regional service to the detriment of the interurban service.
“For the Works Council, only within a few months will it be possible to evaluate whether this amount will be able to compensate for the loss of income.”but we say with certainty that it will not be enough to guarantee supply,” he highlighted.
Regarding CP’s response capacity, “the Government cannot claim uncertainty or ignorance, even though the responsible minister has stated that CP does not need more trains,” CT highlighted.
The entity highlighted that It is “in the hands of the Government to give the PC administration the freedom to negotiate with the unions real salary increases that allow them to hire the necessary workers.”” and “unblock authorizations for the acquisition of spare parts and equipment”, that is, “invoking the legitimate public interest in the purchase of 117 trains, to accelerate the expiration of the judicial precautionary measure.”
“The Government also knows that The quality of CP’s railway service is strongly conditioned by the infrastructure managed by IP.Infrastructure of Portugal, which shares many of CP’s problems,” he indicated, highlighting that “it is in the interest of the Government that passengers continue to blame CP for train delays caused by the state of degradation of the infrastructure and the delay of the works in progress; due to the poor maintenance of the stations or the lack of information to travelers”, all issues “responsibility of IP, which are known to the Government, but which I cannot find an answer in this Green Mobility Package now announced.“.
CT also defended that the measures imply that CP and IP finance “through the infrastructure use fee, private railway freight operators”, highlighting that the use fee “is more expensive in Portugal for passenger trains than for merchandise, since the privatization of CP Carga.”
Noting the Government’s intention to cap the infrastructure fee increase in 2024 for freight trains, CT concludes that “either the infrastructure fee paid by CP is fair and the lowest fee paid by private freight operators is a loss accommodated by IP; or the infrastructure usage fee paid by CP is inflated to finance the cheaper fee paid by private commodity operators.”
Source: Observadora
