MADRID, 25 Feb. (EUROPA PRESS) –

The graffiti vandalism on Renfe trains generated a cost of 25.2 million euros in 2022, which would mean about 69,000 euros per day, as reported by the railway operator in a statement.

In addition to the cleaning itself, to this figure are added the indirect expenses derived from this scourge, such as investment in security, both in personnel and other video surveillance systems, as well as the future implementation of drones, Renfe explained.

“Users directly suffer the consequences of vandalized trains with graffiti: delays and trains canceled due to lack of visibility or graffiti on security elements that prevent movement, emergency braking to paint in the middle of a journey or the smell of it chemical product that is very annoying to travelers, among others”, he lamented.

Thus, during the past year, vandals painted nearly 80,000 square meters of surface area on trains and 10,500 hours of work were spent cleaning trains.

Likewise, they reported 3,559 intrusions by graffiti artists into their facilities this year, which represents an average of close to ten acts of vandalism of this type per day. Last year, Renfe security personnel arrested 33 graffiti artists and the security forces and bodies brought 150 to justice.

On the other hand, the removal of graffiti makes it necessary to move the trains to the cleaning centers. The electricity consumption of these trips is equivalent to the consumption of 400,000 Kwh or what is the same, 36 million light bulbs on for one hour or supplying the consumption of more than 44,000 homes for one day.