The T-10 was for many years the symbol of the success of Barcelona’s public transport fare integration. There was a time when almost everyone carried that ten-ride ticket that could be used on the subway, bus or train and exchanged from one to another, a revolution still pending in many other cities and that users of The Catalan capital is completely normalized.
The turning point occurred in 2020, when the name of the cards was changed following the advice of a creative studio that considered the modernization correct. The T-10 became the T-Casual and was never the same. If at that time, just before the pandemic, 53% of trips were made with the T-10, now the successor of that card, which does not have exactly the same benefits since it is a single person and before different people could use it, It remains at 17% of the total validations.
Its place in the pockets of public transport users has been taken by the T-Usual, which already represents 49.94% of the trips made with integrated tickets, much higher than when it was the T-Mes, which remained then at 15%, according to data collected by the Autoritat del Transport Metropolitana (ATM).
The tariff policy that accompanied the name change sought precisely to make this card the most attractive and competitive for recurring travelers, as agreed by those most responsible for the matter at that time: the deputy mayor Janet Sanz, the vice president of Mobility Metropolitan Antoni Poveda and Councilor Damià Calvet.
The 2020 price adjustment was the first step, although what was really definitive has been the bonuses that have existed since September 2022 to compensate for inflation since at the beginning of 2023 it was decided to maintain the 50% discount on this subscription (30% at the expense from the Government and 20% from the ATM) while it disappeared from the T-Casual. For travelers it was in a way a price increase even though it was a recovery from the previous one. Thus, in the last year the successor to the T-10 has gone from being used by a third of travelers to only 17%, falling by almost half and representing the definitive decline of a gradual downward trend.
And it is enough to do numbers before loading one ticket or another on the T-Mobilitat to verify that just by making 18 trips a month it is more profitable to buy a T-Usual with unlimited trips for the entire month for 20 euros than two T-Casual for 11.35 euros each (prices valid until the entry into force of the new rates starting Monday, January 15, when they will cost 21.35 and 12.15 euros, respectively).
The T-Jove quarterly subscription has also gained a significant number of users, the other title that maintains the 50% discount. In this case, in addition to the price –40 euros for three months, 42.70 since January 15–, the maximum age to use it was extended in March of last year from 25 to 30 years. All of this has led it to represent 16.25% of validations, double what it was four years ago. The T-16, for children under 16 years of age, has also increased, although in a more discreet way, and represents 8% of the total validations.
