Two days after the Urda train accident, the Minister of Transport, Óscar Puente, maintains that the LZB signaling system is "very reliable" and "robust" and that it worked as expected, despite the very common "support" failures, to the point that there have been 160 so far this year and that since the Urda accident it puts Transport and Adif "in completely extreme situations." It has also continued to discharge responsibility for what happened in the "inexplicable" decisions that were taken at the Adif traffic regulation center (CRC) in Atocha. Despite this and the controversy over the accusation of a worker, the minister has assured that he has never said that the accident was due to "human error", the expression that was used by the Government just hours later, and has announced a review of the protocols with which railway traffic professionals operate.
As he said in an extensive press conference at the headquarters of his Ministry, at this time it is not known why the three computers at the Urda station failed but "we do know that this incident is not uncommon and that the system is designed to deal with it." To reinforce this idea, Puente has pointed out that this type of "problems" are included in the railway regulations.
To insist on the normality of a computer failure in the communication of the ZLB signaling system that gave rise to the chain of decisions in the control center that ended in the range of an AVE against an Iryo that has so far caused 69 fatalities, Puente has indicated that in 2026 "the system has crashed 160 times."
Of these 160 incidents - which Puente has insisted on not calling "failures" because the system worked as expected after a crash, paralyzing the circulation of trains -, 75% were due to "circumstances completely unrelated to the system", among them due to "maintenance tasks, works on the track." As he said, like the most modern ERTMS system, the ZLB works on "physical supports" that "sometimes suffer problems and fall."
"The LZB is a very reliable, robust, solid system that is applied in countries like Germany," said Puente. "It is a secure system, as safe as ERTMS," he insisted, referring to the most modern system, which is the one most implemented in the Spanish High Speed network. In fact, on all the lines after the first, the Madrid-Seville, where it already had to have been replaced in an action that shows a delay that Puente has considered "quite normal" in renovation works that, like the case of the Madrid-Seville line, last five years.
Within this "normality" that Puente has conferred both on the ZLB system and on the communication failure that on Tuesday was at the origin of the chain that ended up causing the accident, it has also not seen anything extraordinary in that the first preliminary report issued this Thursday by the Authority that will investigate the accident contemplates that "the LZB breakdowns will also be analyzed."
"It is an absolutely neat report that weighs all the elements that should be the subject of the investigation," said Puente, who insisted that "LZB breakdowns are common and frequent", that "they are in the regulations and in the guidelines to be followed" and that "also" occurs in the case of the ERTMS system, "because they are housed in physical spaces that depend on technology."
"This happens, it is not abnormal and it will continue to happen because no system is absolutely immune to falls," he said, although he also pointed out that after the Urda accident "we have to put ourselves in completely extreme situations."
"The system offered sufficient security guarantees. From now on, we have to put ourselves in completely extreme situations in which clear situations with enormous significance, if not handled well, can lead to a result like the one we have seen," said Puente, who believes that "surely" the Urda accident "has to help modify decision-making systems."
"When the machine fails, the person comes in"
And in these cases, the last retaining wall against catastrophes such as the Urda accident will continue to be the human being, Puente has assured regarding the debate that has opened these days about whether an entire train traffic safety system can ultimately fall to a single person.
"If computer systems fail, what other alternative is there (...) When the machine fails, the person comes in and that's how it has to be and that's how we want it to be," he said, with mentions of another current debate, "now that we are talking about Artificial Intelligence."
Insists on regulators, but their guidelines will be reviewed
In the case of the people who on Tuesday morning were at the final end of the chain that began due to a computer failure, Puente has insisted that they made wrong and "inexplicable" decisions, such as allowing two trains to occupy the same block when the backup system (BSL) was active, which does not allow such a thing, or that the AVE circulated normally, up to 200 km/h, instead of only 40, although he has backed away and ignored the expression. "human error" that government sources did use shortly after the incident occurred.
"I have never used the expression human error, which does not mean that it has not existed," stressed the minister who has once again given one piece of hard work when questioning the relationship between the complaints of work overload and "frequent" failures of the applications that the railway unions have been making to Adif for months with the specific circumstances of the accident, but he has also promised a review of the protocols with which these professionals work.
"What do we have to do? See if the protocols were clear enough and, if possible, analyze the training, the situation of the workforce or the decision-making verification systems," said Puente who, also regarding the demands of the traffic regulators, assured that "we are improving working conditions." As noted, Adif control centers have increased staff by 60% since 2016 to 1,768 currently. In Atocha, he said that in 2012 there were 70 people, in 2025 it reached 140 and now there are 133 due to seven retirements that "we are trying to recover."
"Everything will be studied," Puente assured at least eight months after a meeting between Adif and unions in which the various problems in the operation were made very clear. However, he warned "not to introduce elements that have nothing to do with the accident."
