Laurence Dollimore
TRAVELLING on public transport in Spain could soon be made much simpler.
The Ministry of Transport is studying the creation of a national travel card that can be topped up and used on any service in the country.
That would include trains, trams, buses and even bike rental services.
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Currently, cities like Madrid, Barcelona and Sevilla all have their own travel cards that can be topped up at stations or ‘estancos’.
But that could soon be a thing of the past, with the national government hoping to introduce a card that can be used nationwide.
Transport Minister Oscar Puente announced this week that a public consultation will be held on the issue.
“The Ministry is working on allowing any payment method from any company to be read by any operator,” said the Secretary General of Sustainable Mobility, Alvaro Fernandez Heredia, on Tuesday.
The initiative would lay the foundations for a ‘single transport pass’, first put forward by Greenpeace last year and which already exists in Germany and Austria.
The transport ministry is first working out the technology before thrashing out an agreement between the different autonomous regions.
