National report Spain – September 2013

Positive points for public transport in our country:

1. Barcelona has started with its first full electric bus (made in China) which runs with batteries. The autonomy of the bus is 250 km which allows it to run ordinary routes and services and the time to load batteries is 5,5 h.
2. The Mayor of Barcelona has announced that in October the second step of the new bus scheme deployment will be made. 5 new direct lines (following an orthogonal scheme) will be added to the current new scheme. As a whole, 10 lines which will transport a 1/3 of the total surface passengers (except trams)
3. Associations in favor of public transport in the north and south of the Pyrenees were met in Vilafranca de Conflent (French Catalonia) 13th July  and engaged to demand the right to mobility without borders. A new rail map of the Eurorregion Catalunya- Languedoc/Roussillon – Midi Pyrenees was issued

Negative points for public transport in our country

1. A very serious train accident in the high speed rail scheme took place this September when the hybrid (Diesel-electric) train, Alvia, was entering the city of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia (NW Spain). There is an ongoing judicial inquiry but it looks that the accident was due to two factors. 1.-  The dismissal of the train driver, who after a very long straight line of 80 km, between Orense and Santiago, lost all notion of reality. 2.- The lack of a technical system which prevented the driver to be dismissal after such a long straight. It is not a coincidence that after the accident, a set of beacons were installed in the near of the fatidic curve. With this new equipment a similar accident could be impossible. So, it looks that the judge will prosecute the responsible to manage the infrastructure, e.g., ADIF.  The high number of dead people, 79, and the number of injured people, 178, shows how violent was the accident although the survey also showed that the driver got to diminish the speed of train until 160 km/h. 80% of passengers were hurt or dead.
2. The figures of local transport passenger continue to fall down although the share of sustainable mobility is increasing its values. It proves that as the time goes bay more people walk and specially cycle because it is for free. In Catalonia, in 4 years the decrease of traffic in toll highways has achieve a figure of -27%