The authorities anticipate a very complicated weekend on the Catalan roads. The operation to return to the summer holidays will coincide with the celebration next Sunday of the motorcycling Grand Prix in Montmeló and the traffic absorption capacity of the Catalan road network will be put to the test. And as if that were not enough, there is a forecast of rain during the weekend, which could complicate traffic even more and could make it necessary to modify some of the measures planned by the Mossos to absorb traffic.
The Servei Català de Trànsit expects 255,000 vehicles to return to the Barcelona metropolitan area on Sunday, which in the morning will join the 60,000 attendees at the Montmeló circuit, with which there is a risk of collapse on the AP-7 motorway, the C- 33 and C-17. For this reason, Trànsit recommends scheduling your return trip in advance, avoiding rush hours, finding out about the state of traffic before leaving and consulting possible alternatives beforehand. They recommend, for example, using the C-32 motorway in its northern section as an alternative to the congestion that the AP-7 may suffer. Throughout the weekend of the return operation, Trànsit calculates that 425,000 vehicles will be mobilized, which will travel to the metropolitan area of ??Barcelona.
One of the measures with which Trànsit will try to alleviate the traffic jams is the installation of additional lanes in the opposite direction to the usual to facilitate travel to Barcelona. Thus, there will be additional lanes on the AP-7 in the northern section between Sant Celoni and Montornès del Vallès; on the AP-7 and the B-23 in the southern section between Vilafranca and Molins de Rei; and on the C-32 in its northern section between Sant Andreu de Llavaneres and Montgat. In all these sections in which there will be an additional lane, trucks will not be able to overtake and must travel at a maximum speed of 80km/h.
As of 3:00 p.m. today, the speed between Gelida and Martorell in the Tarragona direction will be limited to 100 km/h, and trucks will be prohibited from overtaking in this section. To prevent those attending the Montmeló circuit from parking their motorcycles “indiscriminately” on the shoulder, the Mossos have installed cones on the C-35 towards Granollers. The police warn that improperly parked cars or motorcycles will be removed with the tow truck as quickly as possible to prevent them from generating further mobility problems to access the circuit. The organization of the grand prix calculates that half of those attending the circuit will go by motorcycle, and for this reason it informs that parking for motorcycles is free and for cars a ticket must be purchased in advance on the circuit’s website.
The device designed by the Mossos to manage security during the motorcycle grand prix has the Kuppel system, an operation that makes it possible to detect drones that fly over the airspace of the circuit without authorization. In case of perceiving a security threat, the technical systems will be activated to neutralize the drone. This mechanism allows obtaining the flight data of the drone, the take-off place, the height, the route, the brand and the model.
