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Spain Transportation and Communications
Spain's road network covered 320,000 kilometers in
1986. Of
the total, 2,000 kilometers were superhighways and 20,000
kilometers were main roads
(see
fig. 11). Fewer than 2,000
kilometers of the network consisted of toll roads. In the
1980s,
road transport was by far the most important method of
moving
people and goods. In 1983 roads accounted for 90 percent
of all
interurban passenger travel. Railroads accounted for 7
percent,
and aviation, for 3 percent of the total. Internal freight
traffic figures were similarly weighted toward road
transport;
the shares of mileage in this category were road, 73
percent;
marine, 18 percent; railroad, 7 percent; and aviation, 2
percent.
About 75 percent of the people entering or leaving Spain
travelled by road, but nearly 90 percent of imported or
exported
goods were transported by sea.
By the late 1980s, Spain's road system was in need of
upgrading. The local road network was so extensive,
however, that
improving it was fraught with difficulties. The network of
major
roads, accounting for 80 percent of the country's traffic,
was
gradually being upgraded under a sucession of long-term
plans,
none of which was very successful. The 1984-91 General
Highways
Plan, directed by the Ministry of Public Works and City
Planning,
envisioned the construction of 5,000 kilometers of
highways.
Railroad construction began in the middle of the
nineteenth
century with the aid of foreign capital. In 1941 the many
poorly
run railroad companies were nationalized and then united
through
the creation of the Spanish National Railroad Network (Red
Nacional de los Ferrocarriles Espanoles--RENFE). RENFE had
its
own statute. It was not operated by any of the state
holding
companies, but instead was supervised by a board nominated
by the
minister of transportation, tourism, and communications.
After
nationalization, the system continued to experience
difficulties,
losing much of its freight and passenger traffic to road
transportation. An impediment to its use for international
traffic was that the track gauge of most of the RENFE
system
differed from that of neighboring countries. Traffic in
parts of
the system was so light that in 1984 the government
decided to
reduce the system by 3,500 kilometers, and in 1985 it
removed
1,000 kilometers from operation. As of the mid-1980s, the
Spanish
state railroad system totalled about 13,000 kilometers,
half of
which were electrified. A major thirteen-year renovation
program
was announced in 1986.
Spain made little use of inland shipping, but nearly 90
percent of all transport in and out of the country was
accomplished by sea in the early 1980s. At the end of
1987, the
Spanish merchant fleet consisted of 957 ships of at least
100
gross tons, and it had a total gross tonnage of 4.6
million tons.
There were, however, an excessive number of companies
engaged in
shipping, some of them owning but a single vessel. In
addition,
many companies did not have the resources to upgrade their
ships,
and the fleet suffered from obsolescence. An indication of
the
troubles of the Spanish shipping industry was that the
largest
shipowner in the country, the Industrial Credit Bank, had
to
attach liens to many of its ships.
Spain had some 200 ports in the 1980s. The ten largest
ports-
-Cartagena, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Bilbao, Barcelona,
Gijon,
Aviles, Puerto de la Luz, Huelva, Valencia, and Sevilla--
accounted for 75 percent of all maritime traffic. Since
the
1960s, there had been a good deal of investment in port
facilities, and Spanish ports were able to handle all
types of
shipping.
In the mid-1980s, Spain had approximately forty
airports that
were open to civil aviation, about half of which could
receive
international flights. Two airlines dominated Spanish
commercial
aviation--Iberia, Lineas Aereas de Espana (generally known
simply
as Iberia) and Aviacion y Comercio (AVIACO). In addition,
there
were four airlines that offered charter services. During
the
1980s, air transport attracted an increasing share of the
traffic
previously carried by RENFE and by the country's shipping
companies. Spain's size encouraged the use of aircraft for
domestic travel, and Iberia and AVIACO had exclusive
rights in
this area. Demand was at times too heavy to be met
adequately,
and fares were so low that domestic operations were not
particularly profitable. Iberia had experienced grave
economic
difficulties in its overseas operations in the late 1970s
and
early the 1980s, but business improved in the second half
of the
decade
(see National Industrial Institute
, this ch.).
The National Telephone Company of Spain (Compania
Telefonica
Nacional de Espana--CTNE), popularly known as La
Telefonica, was
established in 1924 as a subsidiary of the American-owned
International Telephone and Telegraph Company (ITT). The
company
was granted exclusive monopoly rights for the installation
of
telephone service in 1945, when it was nationalized.
CTNE's
operations were supervised by DGPE, and as of 1984 the
government
had a 31.5 percent interest in the company. In an effort
to
modernize its telecommunications network, CTNE entered
into
technology agreements with a number of West European,
Japanese,
and United States companies, and it also obtained stock
market
listings in Frankfurt, London, Paris, Tokyo, and New York.
In
addition, CTNE planned to invest 260 billion pesetas--a
tremendous increase over earlier years--with the aim of
becoming
a guiding force in Spanish high technology. An indication
that
there was room for the company to grow was that Spain had
a mere
369 telephones per 1,000 inhabitants in 1985, a figure
that
lagged well behind most other EC countries.
The Postal Service, which included the national
telegraph
system, was operated by the Ministry of Transportation,
Tourism,
and Communications. Its headquarters was in the Palace of
Communications in Madrid. One of the services offered by
the
Postal Service was a network of postal savings banks,
which had
been established in 1916.
Data as of December 1988
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