Málaga-Vélez - Torre del Mar Trams

The Vélez-Málaga to Torre del Mar tramway is located about 30 km east of Malaga on the Costa del Sol in Andalucía. It is operated by Travelsa, and was inaugurated on October 11th 2006. The standard gauge tramway is 4.6 km in length, and runs between Parque Jurado Lorca in Vélez-Málaga to Paseo Larios in the coastal town of Torre del Mar. It cost 18 million Euros to build, and was described as being financed entirely by European Union funds. An extension of 1.3 km to Explanada de la Estacion in the centre of Vélez-Málaga is planned, which will eventually connect with Metro Line 3 from Málaga (Metro Lines 1 and 2 were originally due for completion in February 2009, but this was delayed until November 2011 - I do not know when Line 3 is now due to complete). The budget for the second phase is 8,860,000 Euros

Recent local reports (newspaper Diario Sur) indicated that 2007 usage was 213,000 fewer than the break-even point and that losses of €700,000 had accumulated. The (new) local mayor had suggested that further outside funding would be necessary before the extension could be completed. There are threats to cease services if more money from Andalucía is not made available. Whilst I can see that the planned system linking into a metro from Málaga might be viable, it does not surprise me that the current short disconnected section is not profitable. The system requires two trams to maintain the schedule, and three CAF vehicles were supplied from the Sevilla order to initiate service (the construction of Sevilla's system being delayed). On weekdays at 20 minute interval service is run until 15:00 when it drops to a 40 minutes interval (operable by a single tram). The travelling time is 17 minutes.

There were further financial problems in the autumn of 2011, with more threats to close the tramway. This subsequently happened on 03/06/2012, when the service was discontinued and replaced by buses (the trams later transferred to Sydney Light Rail).