A year and four months have passed since the first stations of the metropolitan public shared bicycle service were installed in Cornellà. After repeated delays due to problems with the electrical installations that power the infrastructure, the AMBici has completed its deployment and since this Tuesday the bikes are available in l’Hospitalet de Llobregat.
The new 352 bikes and the opening of 32 stations in Catalonia’s second city culminate a process during which vans loaded with bikes have come and gone from the stations to warehouses to recharge them. Those responsible for the service have preferred to wait until all the stations are connected to the electrical grid – both those in l’Hospitalet and the rest of the municipalities – to prevent the bikes from being massively blocked due to lack of battery. In this way, an attempt is made to face with all guarantees the final phase of the deployment of this service, which is owned by the Barcelona Metropolitan Area (AMB) and is managed by Transports Metropolitans de Barcelona (TMB).
With l’Hospitalet there are 15 municipalities in which the AMBici is available. There are 200 stations installed and nearly 2,300 bikes in total, covering the Baix Llobregat to Castelldefels on the coast and Molins de Rei in the interior, as well as Badalona, Santa Coloma de Gramenet and Sant Adrià de Besòs on the other side of the Catalan capital. Once the municipal deployment is completed, the AMB and the city councils will study possible expansions in specific areas until reaching 2,600 bikes and 236 stations.
The arrival at l’Hospitalet suggests significant growth in users, who already number 22,000 today. In addition, it will test the AMBici and Bicing exchange stations installed in the municipal limits of both cities. The current concessions will maintain AMBici on the one hand and Bicing de Barcelona on the other, at least until 2028.
To respond to this situation, in four different points of l’Hospitalet (Collblanc, Ciutat de la Justícia and two different points of Riera Blanca) stations of the two systems have been installed side by side. They are critical facilities and those responsible for AMBici will try to ensure that they never run out of bikes so as not to leave a trip between two municipalities by bike halfway. The station of this type in the Zona Universitària for those arriving from Esplugues has recently had to be expanded due to high demand.