The Government modifies the situations of the free Media Distancia subscriptions after detecting irregularities

The Ministry of Transport, Mobility and the Urban Agenda has modified the situations of use of the free typical Media Distancia season tickets to keep away from the wrong use of those tickets, particularly the habits of sure customers who reserve a seat on the trains with the season ticket after which they don’t journey, as reported by the Department headed by Raquel Sánchez.

The Official State Gazette (BOE) publishes in the present day the brand new situations of those subscriptions, which is able to come into operation, for essentially the most half, subsequent Wednesday, December 7.

Thus, after detecting irregularities, the Ministry of Transport has modified the operation for the sale and use of free Media Distancia multi-trip tickets, limiting the formalization of journeys and the acquisition of season tickets and sanctioning repeated irregular makes use of, amongst different actions.

Cancellation of the fee and seizure of the deposit

Specifically, Renfe will seize the deposit of 20 euros and can cancel the free subscription to customers who, at the very least thrice, haven’t canceled the reservation of the seat with a minimal of two hours prematurely if they aren’t lastly going to journey on the practice. Although the cross will solely be withdrawn from the road by which irregular use has been detected, the railway operator won’t problem a brand new cross related to that holder for any medium-distance origin-destination inside a interval of 30 days from the cancellation.

Current laws set up that, within the case of typical Medium Distance rail providers, customers should buy a distinct cross for every origin/vacation spot journey, which can be legitimate for limitless journeys between the origin and vacation spot requested by the client, on each senses.

Two warnings earlier than the sanction

Before arriving to withdraw the fee and the deposit, Renfe will ship two notices to the holder when it detects that they haven’t lastly traveled with out canceling the reservation with the required advance discover. The third time misuse is incurred, it can proceed to penalize. Even so, a transitional interval of seven days is established by which the traveler can be knowledgeable of the breach with out this implying the applying of the measure.

In parallel, the brand new situations will restrict the utmost variety of journeys that may be formalized per season ticket to 4 each day roundtrips and it is going to be inconceivable to formalize two journeys in the identical course till triple the scheduled journey time has elapsed.

Thus, the Government desires to stop it from distorting the effectiveness of a measure that was carried out with the intention of encouraging demand for public transport and contributing to decreasing CO2 emissions.

Quota of seats in trains with excessive demand

For its half, on sure trains with reserved seats and excessive demand, Renfe could set up a quota of standing seats, that’s, with out reserved seats, which won’t exceed 10% of the seats supplied with reserved seats, informing stated journey situation to vacationers. Seat choice won’t be accessible on these high-demand trains.

Likewise, a selected subscription can be launched for minors with out DNI and just one title will be obtained by DNI, NIE or passport for every origin-destination, thus avoiding improper use of those titles. This measure will enter into power on January 1, 2023, coinciding with the activation of the extension of reductions for public rail transport.

The Ministry highlights that the free passes for rail transport have been very nicely obtained by the inhabitants, which has already acquired greater than 2.2 million tickets, of which 1.6 million are for commuter and Rodalies journey and 627,000 Titles are for typical Media Distancia.