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Cercanias Mostoles Navalcarnero SA, a Spanish local train operator 100% owned by OHL Concesiones, has filed for insolvency.

This announcement comes after Madrid Superior Court denied to suspend a fine of €34.1 million ($38.0 million) imposed to the concessionaire by the regional government of Madrid. Previously, the company asked to get compensation of €369.5 million supported by third-party expert reports.

Cercanias Mostoles Navalcarnero was set up to carry out the 14.6km Mostoles - Navalcarnero rail public private partnership (PPP) project, which was awarded to OHL in 2007 and was signed in 2008 in the region of Madrid. At the moment only a 30% of the project has been developed. 

The concession project is in trouble since the expected traffic is much lower than the first estimate of 20,000 passenger per day. This is due to the fact that a big urban development in the area was canceled during the financial crisis, reducing the traffic estimate to 4000 passenger per day. OHL has requested modifications to the government to make the project feasible but so far they have not been accepted.

The new suburban train to Navalcarnero would leave from the Mósteles Central transfer station, enabling the connection to the Metro de Madrid subway and the Renfe Commuter Train networks. The project is planned to have seven stations: 4 in Mósteles, 1 in Arroyomolinos (Parque Coimbra) and 2 in Navalcarnero.

This infrastructure, which would run to the south of the Extremadura Highway (A-5), would make it possible to reduce the travel time between Navalcarnero and Mósteles to only 20 minutes.