BRUSELAS, 5 Dic. (EUROPA PRESS) -
10% of the holders of the free Media Distancia season tickets make fraudulent or irregular use of them, since they reserve a space that they do not use later, leaving the rest of the users unable to travel, for which they would face sanctions such as the withdrawal of the subscription, the seizure of the deposit or the suspension for one month of being able to acquire another subscription.
This was reported by the Minister for Transport, Mobility and the Urban Agenda, Raquel Sánchez, upon entering the Formal Council of Transport Ministers of the European Union, which is held in Brussels, where she specified that this fraudulent use only affects 3% of the total number of free passes issued, since Cercanías do not require a seat reservation.
Some 640,000 passes have been issued for Media Distancia, so that around 64,000 people, 10%, would be reserving several seats for the same route that they do not use in the end. They do it in several trains to ensure several possible slots to travel.
For all these reasons, the Ministry has decided to go on to establish a sanctioning regime, mainly because this misuse affects the rest of travelers who either have a season ticket and use it correctly or do not have a season ticket and need to travel in that relationship but do not they can because the seat is reserved, even if no one travels in it.
Specifically, Renfe will seize the deposit of 20 euros and will cancel the free subscription to users who, at least three times, have not canceled the reservation of the seat with a minimum of two hours in advance if they are not finally going to travel on the train. Although the pass will only be withdrawn from the line in which irregular use has been detected, the railway operator will not issue a new pass associated with that holder for any medium-distance origin-destination within a period of 30 days from the cancellation.
On the other hand, the minister has valued the "active role" of Spain in the Council of Ministers of the EU, in which she defends the promotion of new sections of the trans-European transport network such as Bilbao-Santander and the rest of priority corridors for the country such as the Atlantic and the Mediterranean.
