The urban buses of several Catalan cities have remained in a legal limbo that the municipal governments have taken advantage of to allow scooters to continue to ride on public transport. The ban by the Metropolitan Transport Authority (ATM) affects the metro, trains, buses of Barcelona and the Metropolitan Area of ??Barcelona (AMB) and interurban of the Generalitat. On the other hand, the bus service of Catalan municipalities outside the AMB is owned by the town councils and, in this way, they are outside the restriction dictated by the ATM.
The difference in criteria means that there are 15 Catalan cities that allow scooters to enter the city bus, even if they cannot then use intermodality with Rodalies trains, Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat (FGC) or another intercity bus to go to the neighboring municipality The dysfunction takes place in cities of considerable size such as Mataró, Sabadell, Terrassa, Manresa and Reus. Also in Figueres, Martorell, Abrera, Pallejà, Olot, Lloret de Mar, Sant Sadurní d’Anoia, Vilafranca del Penedès, Vilanova i la Geltrú and Cunit.
All these councils, except Figueres, are part of the association of municipalities for mobility and urban transport (Amtu), in which there are also other municipal governments that have advocated to follow the steps of the ATM and prohibit the entrance with a scooter inside city buses. This is the case, for example, of Sitges, a municipality whose mayor is the president of the Amtu, Aurora Carbonell. Other large cities that are not part of this entity, such as Girona and Tarragona, have also opted for the veto. Outside of Catalonia, the Community of Madrid has also recently banned it after the dramatic fire of a scooter in the Spanish capital’s metro just a month ago.
The 15 municipalities that allow personal mobility vehicles to enter the city bus already took this decision when the ATM board of directors temporarily banned it in January after a scooter caught fire in a FGC wagon that caused all the alarms to go off. The indefinite ban on scooters since November 1 has not changed the criteria towards these devices and everyone remains willing to continue allowing scooter access to city bus lines in the future.
Meanwhile, in public transport where it is prohibited, some users continue to try to enter it with a scooter. If in February, when the regulations came into force, they disappeared almost completely overnight, during the summer there was an increase in attempts. The last few weeks, with the definitive ban, have barely been seen. Between February and September, the various operators issued nearly 650 fines to users who boarded the wagons with their vehicle, almost three a day. According to the data published by Ser Catalunya, most of the sanctions (492) have been imposed on the Barcelona metro. Nearly 80 have been in Rodalies, 58 in the FGC, and 12 in the tramway. No one has been fined on the intercity buses, because the drivers have the slogan to prevent anyone who tries to get on the personal mobility vehicle.
