The Board of Directors of Adif approved the pre-award of capacity for the next decade to three companies for the liberalization of the railway sector in Spain. The companies are consortium formed by Ilsa and Trenitalia; and the  French SNCF, through its Spanish subsidiary Rielsfera. They will compete with Spanish railway operator Renfe in the AVE (high-speed train system in Spain) from December 14, 2020, when the railway sector liberalization will begin.

These companies may offer their services in the corridors of Madrid with Barcelona, Levante  (Valencia and Alicante) and  South  (Seville and Malaga), which will result in a capacity increase of 65%, progressively.

The infrastructure manager is confident that companies will be ready on December 14, 2020, to start operating the network - although they could start later - and that their frequencies will gradually increase. In total,  a total of 53 daily trains will be established on the Madrid-Barcelona route, compared to the current 27 on average. In addition, on the  Madrid-Toledo-Seville-Malaga route, the capacity is expected to increase by 75% with 61 daily circulations, while in  Madrid-Levante  (Valencia and Alicante) the increase will be 40%, up to 53 circulations.

Six companies submitted their application. But the group formed by Talgo and Globalia; EcoRail and the group formed by Globalvia and Moventia didn´t go through.