The man who was General Secretary of Government Infrastructure for two years returns to Catalonia. After a career dedicated to infrastructure planning, in December he took charge of Transports Metropolitans de Barcelona (TMB), the largest Catalan public company. Xavier Flores grants La Vanguardia the first interview in his new position, a few weeks after taking over from Gerardo Lertxundi, who was dismissed by the president, Laia Bonet.
What have you learned at the Ministry of Transportation that will be useful for your new position?
Responsibility and the sense of public service. I maintain a public service line, just like the 8,296 people who work at TMB. My first mission as CEO is to vindicate the work they do as public servants who lift the mobility blinds every day.
His engineering career breaks with more common business management profiles at the head of TMB. What can your profile contribute?
In the Ministry of Transport and in the Generalitat I have always dedicated myself to promoting and carrying out projects, but beyond that, I have always tried to have an aspect of transforming and modernizing organizations.
What transformation does TMB need?
The same one that challenges the entire society, an ecological and digital transformation. We have the challenges of maintaining, transforming and growing.
The number of travelers has reached record levels and that is increasing crowds. What can be done?
Invest. The growth of users forces us to do it, otherwise we will die of success. On the one hand, we need to purchase more trains to reach the capacity limit, absorb future demand and increase frequencies. On the other hand, there is a lack of investments in the expansion works of the metro network.
Which depends on the will and budget of the Generalitat.
There is a set of projects that the economic crisis put in a drawer and that the climate crisis forces to dust off: the extension of the L1 in Badalona; the connection of the Sant Antoni L2 with Parc Logístic passing through Montjuïc, Fira and taking advantage of line 9 to be able to go to the airport from the center of Barcelona; the connection of Trinitat Vella with Trinitat Nova in the L3; the extension of that same line to Esplugues on the other side; and that the L4 reaches the future Sagrera station and connects with the 22@ and Poblenou.
There are many works, which one should be unlocked as a priority?
None of them is coincidental, all of them are very studied and analyzed, although the construction projects must be updated and promoted again because they have been stopped for a long time. For example, the one on L3 must be updated and incorporate connectivity with the future Clínic hospital. If the work was already necessary for Baix Llobregat, it is even more so now. Or the one on L2, which when the Parc Logístic depots on L9/10 south were built, it was done thinking that one day this line should reach there, for which an entire construction project has already been done that will have to be put to the public. day.
Should we finish the central section of L9 first and then tackle these projects or can progress be made in parallel?
The new works will not start tomorrow, many of these projects cannot be put out to tender now, there is all previous technical and administrative work to be done. That takes one, two or three years. That is why it must be done now, while L9 is finished, so that when it is finished, these works can take over.
Also taking into account the long manufacturing processes of the new trains, shouldn’t the necessary ones have to be ordered now for when the entire L9 comes into service?
And so, this year they should be commissioned. If not, we may find some surprises. 22 more are needed when the central section of L9 comes into service and we would need another 17 to improve other lines, especially lines 1 and 5, the most saturated. In turn, the new trains will require investments in the modernization of depots, workshops and all associated services.
In buses, the green transformation involves renewing the fleet and ending diesel. Where are you heading? Electric, hydrogen or another modality?
We must evolve towards a zero-emission bus fleet. This year more than 100 new vehicles with these features will arrive. Electric or hydrogen in the end are the same, only the way of accumulating the energy varies. They are the ones who have to end up prevailing. Hybrids and natural gas, on the other hand, must be amortized and replaced.
Are garages and infrastructure prepared for this great change?
It is a topic that has many faces, the purchase of the vehicle is perhaps the easiest, but you must also think about everything that it entails: adaptation of the garages, electrical installations, increase in power… you must even change the way to work and mechanics must be trained.
TMB’s strategic plan aims to make diesel practically extinct in 2030. Can the schedule be met?
It will always depend on budgetary availability, but it is an issue that we are obliged to comply with as a society. What is happening around us should lead us to think that we must not only comply, but even accelerate as much as possible. Just like metro investments, they are absolutely profitable transformations for cities. They are investments with a return and a clear social and ecological benefit.
Can the company’s debt affect investments?
The debt belongs to the system, not TMB. The 2014 crisis put everyone at risk and TMB acted as an older brother, assumed the debt of the Autoritat del Transport Metropolitana (ATM) and saved Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat, the buses… everyone! Even so, of a budget of 1.3 billion, about 160 million are allocated to pay the debt. Is it a lot or a little? It doesn’t seem overwhelming, it’s a manageable figure. It represents around 12% of the budget, it is not an imperative slab.
But can it condition the investments that it previously requested?
The corresponding administrations must answer that. The Generalitat owes 85,000 million to the Autonomous Liquidity Fund (FLA). Are they going to say that less than 1 billion TMB is a problem? Of course, it would be better not to have debt, but it must be contextualized and provide stability to the company’s future.
How can they manage that tourists colonize bus lines that are local?
We are studying it with the City Council to see what solutions we can find. It is fantastic that tourists move around by public transport, but we have to combine it with citizens’ right to mobility.
Does TMB aspire to one day manage the tram that is now in the hands of a private concession?
We are at the service of the administrations. Now we have been asked to take on the AMBici, the metropolitan area’s shared bike, and we will be available to whatever is asked of us.
What are you learning from the management of AMBici?
We are very pleased to be more multimodal than we already were. We are one of the few companies of this volume that operate buses and metro and now we add shared bikes.
Is it the first step to manage Bicing in the future?
If the administrations consider that this is good for everyone, we will do it. We are an instrument at the service of society.
