Public transport users have the perception that they spend 20% more time getting to Barcelona during rush hour compared to the experience they would have in a private vehicle. That translates to 10 more minutes on average. A difference they are willing to accept. This is one of the main conclusions drawn from a study presented this Thursday by the RACC based on an analysis of different public transports. Others are that the main reason that leads to opting for the train or the bus and not the car is the fear of congestion at the entrance to the big city and that the trains from Maresme and the Llobregat delta are already 90% full. of its capacity, which makes the experience of the journey unpleasant.
“Investing ten more minutes on the trip does not penalize public transport users, but for those who do not use it it can mean a world,” said the director of the Mobility Area of ??the RACC, Cristian Bardají. “What the user of private transport values ??is its reliability,” added the president of the mobility club, Josep Mateu.
If this 20% extra time recorded from the door of the house to the workplace is not the main concern, what headaches do public transport customers have? According to the aforementioned study, which interviewed 1,100 users between the Exprés Bus, Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat de Catalunya (FCG) and Rodalies, what they claim is 57% more frequency of passage, followed by having a more extensive network and more capillary (39%). Having more trains passing regularly is especially important for Renfe users, with this demand reaching 62%. The survey does not include it, but it is worth remembering that the service impacts that are lamented due to improvement works or frequent copper thefts are also a great citizen concern.
“The proximity of the stop or station is a determining factor,” Mateu said. Only 13% of public transport users who travel to Barcelona live in urbanizations. The rest do so in urban centers and have an easier time getting to public transportation.
According to the report, in 2022, on a working day, some 850,000 entry trips to Barcelona were generated from the closest regions such as Baix Llobregat, Vallès Occidental, Vallès Oriental or Maresme. 60% of users are between 21 and 40 years old and travel for forced mobility, that is, to study or work.
The grade given to public transport, which is an average of the responses collected during the month of October last year, is 5.7. 27% fail the service, 34% approve it, 32% give it a grade and only 7% give it an excellent rating.
FGC, with a 5.9, is the service with the highest score. But the rest are not very far away. The Express Bus reaches a 5.8 and Rodalies a 5.5. “Rodalies users don’t rate it so badly. It is the people who do not use it who have a worse opinion,” reflected Bardají.
What leads them to use public transportation and not private vehicles on a daily basis? The work of the RACC explains that the main reason is to avoid the congestion that forms at the entrance to Barcelona during rush hour. This is the answer given by 79% of those surveyed. At a long distance, the second motivation is financial savings (31%) and the third is the difficulty of parking at their destination (26%). Other considerations, such as sustainability or lower risk of accidents, are still much further away.
The work of the Barcelona mobility club goes beyond the surveys carried out last October and also examines the occupancy of trains and buses at rush hour, analyzing 42 of the 50 lines available in Rodalies, FGC and Bus Exprés.
The average occupancy of the train to Barcelona is 80% between 7:30 a.m. and 9:30 a.m., right at rush hour to go to study or work. Now, there are lines that are more saturated than others. The Llobregat and Maresme delta corridors are the most affected, exceeding 90% occupancy. A situation that worsens early in the morning, when the Llobregat delta corridor has 99% occupancy and the Maresme corridor has 95%. A need that is not new is x-rayed: more frequencies and more capacity are required. “More than 90% occupancy in a transport makes the trip uncomfortable,” described the director of the Mobility Area of ??the RACC. “The situation has not improved, high occupancy has remained” in recent years, added Cristian Bardají.
From Vallès Occidental and Vallès Oriental, occupancy does not exceed 80%; and from the rest of Baix Llobregat only from 7.30 am to 8.30 am.
For its part, the Express Bus has an average occupancy of 77% and its peak is also between 7:30 and 8:30 with 82%.
In this context, the RACC put forward some proposals to improve the situation. Among them are old demands such as “guaranteeing the frequency and capacity of Rodalies even with works in progress, communicating contingency plans to users.” They also consider it necessary to “reinforce the frequency of the Express Bus.” In addition, the organization encourages “completing the tariff integration of all of Catalonia with T-Mobilitat, giving rebates to recurring users.”
On the other hand, the RACC also recommends “improving mobility from home to the station to reduce travel time” and extending the parks
