The National Commission of Markets and Competition (CNMC) has partially estimated the complaint filed by Iryo regarding access to Renfe's heavy maintenance facilities and has urged the public company to allow the trains of this operator to enter the La Sagra (Toledo) workshop to carry out the disassembly and assembly of their bogies, as reported this Tuesday.
The regulator has analyzed Iryo's complaint regarding Renfe's refusal to admit its rolling stock into its heavy maintenance workshops and concludes that the company rejected the request just days before the planned start of operations and "without sufficient objective justification."
The CNMC details that Renfe Maintenance had put heavy maintenance services on the market and, after more than 18 months of conversations with Iryo about the access conditions for its trains to the workshops and the provision of such services, communicated that it would ultimately not carry them out "just two weeks before the start of operations," "without sufficient objective justification and without having followed the procedures for coordination and prioritization of incompatible requests."
According to the agency, this withdrawal of the offer by Renfe left Iryo "without viable alternatives to execute on time" the heavy maintenance of its fleet, "with the consequent risk of immobilization" of the trains.
The CNMC considers that this possible immobilization "would prevent" Iryo from fulfilling its capacity reservation commitments with the railway infrastructure manager and "would impact the plurality of the available transport service offer" for travelers.
Therefore, Competition now demands that Renfe Maintenance "facilitate access" for Iryo's trains to the La Sagra workshop, in Toledo, for the disassembly and assembly tasks of bogies, "under the terms previously negotiated by the parties and without prejudice to both being able to reach an alternative solution by mutual agreement."
However, it specifies that this obligation is limited to the 19 trains included in the conversations between both companies and does not imply that Renfe must assume the maintenance of the bogies in the Valladolid workshop, given that it has been demonstrated that Iryo "has alternatives" to carry out these interventions there.
The CNMC also does not accept Iryo's request for Renfe to open its facilities so that the operator can carry out all tasks related to the "R2" intervention of its trains in self-supply, since Renfe Mantenimiento's offer "did not include this element".
The public body emphasizes that heavy maintenance of rolling stock is a "critical" activity for railway companies, as the lack of these inspections within the scheduled timeframes can lead to the immobilization of trains.
It also reminds that the regulations require providers of heavy maintenance services that offer them to the market to provide them to all operators in a "transparent and non-discriminatory" manner.
In case of receiving incompatible requests, it adds, the provider "must try to accommodate them, engaging in negotiations with the operators and maximizing the capacity of the workshops and, only if that is not possible, apply prioritization criteria to allocate the capacity".