Additionally, there are highways along the Atlantic (Ferrol to Vigo), Cantabrian (Oviedo to San Sebastián) and Mediterranean (Girona to Cádiz) coasts. Spain aims to put one million electric cars on the road by 2014 as part of the government’s plan to save energy and boost energy efficiency. The former Minister of Industry Miguel Sebastián said that “the electric vehicle is the future and the engine of an industrial revolution.”
Spain has the most extensive high-speed rail network in Europe, and the second-most extensive in the world after China. As of 2019, Spain has a total of over 3,400 km of high-speed tracks linking Málaga, Seville, Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia and Valladolid, with the trains operated at commercial speeds up to 310 km/h.
On average, the Spanish high-speed train is the fastest one in the world, followed by the Japanese bullet train and the French TGV. Regarding punctuality, it is second in the world (98.5% on-time arrival) after the Japanese Shinkansen (99%). Should the aims of the ambitious AVE programme (Spanish high speed trains) be met, by 2020 Spain will have 7,000 km of high-speed trains linking almost all provincial cities to Madrid in less than three hours and Barcelona within four hours.
There are 47 public airports in Spain. The busiest one is the airport of Madrid (Barajas), with 50 million passengers in 2011, being the world’s 15th busiest airport, as well as the European Union’s fourth busiest.
