The road safety plans of any administration are usually marked as the objective of reducing the number of accidents. It is their reason for being and only the strategies chosen or the way to face the problem vary. The Catalan Traffic Service (SCT) of the Generalitat has this time taken a step further in the 2024-2026 strategic plan. In addition to wanting fewer deaths and injuries on the road (20% on the interurban network and 5% in the urban area), Tránsit is committed to reducing the number of cars that circulate on the road network. Specifically, they project up to 10% less private vehicle traffic in the metropolitan region by 2026 compared to 2019.
The way to achieve this is through a Traffic strategy with the Department of Territory – with whom they have agreed the document – and the councils that promotes and promotes sustainable means of transport to the detriment of the private vehicle. It is a job that, with more or less eagerness, councils have been doing for some time. Those responsible for the plan see it as feasible to achieve this ambitious 10% on weekdays in the metropolitan area, which is the area best served by public transport. At the end of the day, it is the fundamental recipe and over which Tránsit has no powers, although the plan includes the need to create dissuasive parking at stations, including spaces for bicycles.
Traffic has more direct involvement in the main measure that favors public transport on the road: the bus lanes on the expressways entering Barcelona. The plan includes that of the C-31 from Maresme (already in operation in one section), that of the B-23 from Baix Llobregat (under construction) and that of the C-33 and C-17 (which neither it only has the drafted draft). In these bus lanes and the one on the C-58, Tránsit is also betting on changing the traffic regulations and allowing motorbikes to travel there, an old debate that appears and reappears regularly over the years.
Apart from the large target figures, the plan includes the arrival of the first four speed cameras on Catalan roads this year, which will be up to a dozen later. It is a new model of radar that is a hybrid between fixed and mobile, loaded inside a custom-built trailer to be placed where it is considered temporarily without the need for the presence of the Mossos d’Esquadra . “They are designed for all kinds of roads, it can be the AP-7 motorway or a municipal crossing of an urban or peri-urban area such as the passage through the town of Coll de Nargó”, exemplifies Lamiel based on the case of a of the small councils with very little budget and municipal structure that has asked for help from Traffic to reduce the speed of cars when they cross the town.
In addition to radars, Tránsit is committed to taking advantage of technology with cameras equipped with artificial intelligence that serve to have a much more accurate picture of reality on the roads, since it counts exactly how many motorbikes, cars and bikes can pass along a route, the time, the speed… All this information is intended to be used for more efficient traffic management, which is linked to the deployment of variable speed on some of the access roads to Barcelona. The first to have it will be the C-58, although the difficulty in installing the corresponding infrastructure means that it will take longer than Tránsit would like. The same goes for the signaling systems for cyclists in tunnels, where one was installed as a test, but no more have been deployed.
