The Minister of Transport and Sustainable Mobility, Óscar Puente, has assured this Tuesday that 2026 is the year in which the failures of the LZB signaling system have had a lesser impact on rail traffic since 2010.
During his appearance at the Permanent Deputation, convened in the wake of the rail tragedy of Urda (Toledo) in which at least 69 people lost their lives, the Transport official expressly referred to the collapse of the LZB system that preceded that incident.
Puente recalled that last Friday he said that, so far this year, the LZB system has been interrupted around 170 times, a figure which, as he detailed then, is in the vicinity of the European average. However, this Tuesday he specified before the Permanent Deputation that not in all of those episodes was rail traffic compromised.
In this way, the minister has clarified that, out of that total accumulated during the year, only on 64 occasions has there been a real impact on rail traffic. Next, he provided a historical breakdown and emphasized that since 2010, when 13 incidents were recorded, no such low level had been reached.
Historical breakdown of LZB incidents
In his review by years, he stated that there were 75 impacts in 2012, 74 in 2013, 69 in 2014, 76 in 2015, 71 in 2016, 72 in 2017, 93 in 2018, 102 in 2019, 78 in 2020, 87 in 2021, 121 in 2022, 85 in 2021, 83 in 2023, 86 in 2024, and 79 in 2025.
Regarding the maximum of 121 incidents recorded in 2022, Puente pointed out that it is probably due to the fact that that year began the works for the implementation of the ERTMS system, whose entry into service, replacing the LZB, is expected for 2027.
Likewise, the minister wanted to emphasize that "75% of these figures are due to causes completely external to the system," among which he cited cable theft, acts of vandalism, damage linked to works, tension problems, or fires.
Comparison between LZB and ERTMS
As for the comparison with the ERTMS, present for example on the Madrid-Barcelona line, Puente stated that so far this year, including October, 146 incidents have been recorded that have affected traffic and that there have been years, such as 2012, 2013, or 2025, in which 298, 214, and 222 episodes were reached, respectively.
When carrying out a ratio per kilometer or per million kilometers traveled, the minister has indicated that the difference "is very small", standing at 1.50 for the LZB and 1.11 for the ERTMS.
"Therefore, as we said from the very first moment, in terms of reliability, the ERTMS system does not show clearly superior performance to the LZB", he has concluded.