Adif wants train times to follow passengers around the station rather than on fixed boards. Credit: J.K2507 / Shutterstock
Passengers at Málaga María Zambrano are used to bunching together beneath a few big old departure boards to find their train. Now Adif (Spain’s rail infrastructure manager) has put the first phase of a €5.5 million screen upgrade out to tender, with 60 new screens for Málaga and 28 for Antequera.
The new screens will follow passengers around the station
Instead of a handful of big boards in fixed spots, the screens will be spread through the station and along the platforms, much like that of an airport having departure screens all around the terminals. Adif says that will also stop people crowding around the single display like they currently do.
As well as departures and arrivals, the screens will show station services, luggage information, special or unplanned events and connections with other transport. They’ll also get a fresh look, with a new typeface, pictograms and colours designed to make them easier to read.
The same contract covers new clocks, public address systems and signs to help people find their way around, so passengers in Málaga and Antequera should notice more than just the screens.
Málaga gets the longest screen in Andalucía
One of Málaga’s 60 screens will measure 18 metres long and 1.75 metres high, making it the longest in the region. Sevilla Santa Justa is down for the next biggest, two screens of up to 12 metres long and two metres high, among 125 in all.
Málaga María Zambrano handled around 8.9 million passengers in 2024, with high-speed trains to Madrid, Barcelona and a myriad of other destinations across Spain. Its departure and arrival screens are now set for an upgrade, which should make life easier for regular passengers hunting for their platform once the work goes ahead.
Antequera Santa Ana’s high-speed station will also receive 28 screens of its own to aid it’s growing number of passengers passing through.
It’s the system Madrid’s Chamartín already uses
The upgrade follows the model Adif introduced at Madrid Chamartín-Clara Campoamor, which reopened its main concourse on Tuesday June 2 after four years of works. Its new system uses 65-inch screens showing arrivals, departures and platforms in advance, plus a QR code that links to Adif’s app.
Chamartín had a record 46.2 million passengers in 2025, and the six Andalucian stations in this first phase, which also include Córdoba Julio Anguita, Puente Genil-Herrera and Villanueva de Córdoba-Los Pedroches, handled about 30 million between them, with 293 screens planned in total.
Nothing has been installed yet
This is still a tender and not a finished job. Adif hasn’t said when a contractor will be chosen or when the first screens will go up, and has only said that other stations will follow gradually. It comes after a rough year for rail passengers in Málaga, with the high-speed line to Madrid shut for 102 days earlier this year and only getting its double track back in July.
Until a contractor is chosen and a date is set, passengers in Málaga and Antequera will be relying on the existing boards.