The Madrid – Valencia rolling highway has launched. Tramesa and Transitalia worked on the development of the route for more than five years. After testing the route, they opened it on Sunday 30 June.

The rolling highway between Madrid and Valencia is now operational, says logistics operator Tramesa’s general director, Jesús Calvo, in Spanish media. An official inauguration is reportedly still awaiting.

The project, championed by Tramesa and their Italian counterpart Transitalia, is supposed to take trucks off the road and move them via rail. The rolling highway particularly focuses on semi-trailers coming from Italy through the Genoa port. Trucks that would typically continue via the road towards Madrid are now taken off the road and loaded onto a train instead. More than ten thousand trains are supposed to be removed from the road on an annual basis.

In the days preceding the launch, Tramesa and Transitalia circulated a test train on the route. Prior to that, the companies tested loading and unloading with the gantry and the Valencia port dock.

The video below shows a test run of the Madrid – Valencia rolling highway published by Tramesa.

Medway will operate the route

Besides Tramesa and Transitalia, other companies and institutions were involved in the development of the project as well. For example, Medway, a Portugal-based MSC subsidiary, will be operating the route with its Euro6000 locomotives. Moreover, Spanish infrastructure manager Adif adapted the profile of the line to enable it for semi-trailer traffic.

Spain seems to be on track for more rolling highways in the future. It allocated 468 million euros for the Algeciras – Madrid – Zaragoza line, and Tramesa is looking to extend the Madrid – Valencia line all the way into Portugal.

Adif has reportedly already designed five other routes to be remodelled to enable rolling highway services. These include routes from Zaragoza to Huelva and Sevilla, two routes from Lisbon to Valencia and Madrid, as well as a rolling highway between Azuqueca and Tarragona.

Also read:

• Valencia-Madrid Rolling Highway to be operational in 2024
• Valencia-Madrid rolling highway enters test phase
• Medway threatens to leave Portugal: “We have full support in Spain”