These are the three main reasons why a Malaga train service has broken an all-time record with almost one million passengers in a year

The C2 commuter line, which connects the city with several towns in the Guadalhorce valley, has seen a rise of almost 50%

Ignacio Lillo

Malaga

Monday, 7 April 2025, 12:22

An increase in the number of passengers and a growing volume of complaints - the C2 commuter train line, which connects Malaga city centre with several towns in the Guadalhorce valley, attracts both positive and negative data in the latest usage figures. For the first time ever, the Málaga Centro Alameda-Álora line carried almost one million passengers in 2024 (975,500), compared to 670,800 in 2023. With this, the service also exceeded the figures from before the coronavirus pandemic.

Considering three key factors - state subsidies allowing free travel to regular passengers; increase of population in smaller towns due to high prices in Malaga; and traffic jams on main roads - the C2 train line is becoming saturated and overwhelmed by the volume of passengers, who are calling for urgent measures to be taken to resolve some of the issues.

Free travel

The first factor that contributed to the record of passengers in 2024 was the price of a season ticket: zero euros. State subsidies for regular users made travel free of charge for all passengers. This benefit continues this year, at least until July.

Population growth

Free travel cannot bring record numbers alone. In order for such subsidies to be allocated, there must be great demand, which comes from the number of people who use the train service every day.

The population in municipalities that have access to the C2 line has been growing. Pushed by the very high prices of housing in Malaga city, more and more people are drawn by smaller municipalities such as Cártama, Pizarra and Álora as an alternative.

Cártama, for example, has grown by 5,000 new residents in a decade, while Pizarra has added 1,000 residents in the last five years. In the latter municipality, one out of every ten registered residents is new.

Many of these new residents come from Malaga: they are young people, couples or families who cannot afford housing prices in the Costa del Sol capital, but still need to travel there for work. Many of them are convinced by the connectivity offered by the Cercanías line C2, which passes through Cártama, Pizarra and Álora and allows access to the centre of Malaga and the María Zambrano train station in a maximum of 40 minutes.

People are drawn to using the train despite some downsides, such as limited timetable and the increasing overcrowding of carriages. One clear sign of the saturation issue is the lack of parking spaces near train stations, as residents leave their vehicles there before hopping on the train that would take them to the city.

Traffic jams on main roads

A big advantage of the train is that it takes people and their vehicles off the roads, where the situation is no better. Regular traffic jams happen on the Guadalhorce Valley's main roads, especially at peak hours.

The A-357 motorway from Malaga city is still awaiting the implementation of a new section to accommodate the needs of drivers. After almost two decades without progress, the Andalusian regional government plans to put out to tender the transformation into a dual carriageway (with two lanes in each direction) of a four-kilometre stretch between Casapalma and Cerralba. This will mean the beginning of the widening of another section of the A-357 from where it becomes a single carriageway in each direction right now, just before the Río Grande bridge, which will involve an investment of 52 million euros.

In addition, the drafting of two projects totalling eight kilometres on the aforementioned road has already been commissioned. The projects concern the Casapalma-Cerralba and the Cerralba-Zalea sections.

Top 50

Esta funcionalidad es exclusiva para registrados.

Reporta un error en esta noticia