The T-10 was for many years the symbol of the success of the tariff integration of public transport in Barcelona. There was a time when almost everyone carried that ten-trip ticket that could be used on the subway, bus or train and exchanged between them, a whole revolution still pending in many other cities and that users of the Catalan capital have fully normalized.
The turning point came in 2020, when the name of the cards was changed following the advice of some creative studio that considered the modernization right. 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 single-person and previously could be used by different people, it remains at 17% of the total validations.
Its place in the pockets of public transport users has been occupied by the T-Usual, which already represents 49.94% of trips made with integrated tickets, well above when it was the T-Mes, which it was then at 15%, according to data compiled by the Metropolitan Transport Authority (ATM). The tariff policy that accompanied the name change was precisely intended to make this card the most attractive and competitive for recurring travelers, as agreed by the top officials in the field at the time: Deputy Mayor Janet Sanz, the vice president of Metropolitan Mobility Antoni Poveda and councilor Damià Calvet.
The 2020 price adjustment was the first step, although the really definitive one has been the bonuses that have been in place since September 2022 to compensate for inflation, since at the beginning of 2023 it was decided to maintain in this subscription the 50% discount (30% from the Central Government and 20% from the ATM), while it disappeared from the T-Casual. For travelers it was in a way a price increase, even if it was the recovery of the previous one. So, in the last year the successor to the T-10 has gone from being used by a third of travelers to just 17%, and it has fallen to almost half and has meant the definitive reversal of a gradual trend towards the drop
And it is enough to do the numbers before loading one ticket or another to the T-Mobilitat to see that by only making 18 trips a month it is more cost-effective to buy a T-Usual with unlimited trips for the whole month for 20 euros and two T-Casual for 11.35 euros each (prices valid until the entry into force of the new rates from tomorrow, when they will cost 21.35 euros and 12.15 euros, respectively).
The T-Jove quarterly subscription, the other title that maintains the 50% discount, has also gained a significant number of users. In this case, in addition to the price – 40 euros for three months, 42.70 euros from tomorrow -, the maximum age to use it was extended in March of last year, from 25 to at the age of 30 All this has meant that it represented 16.25% of validations, double what it was four years ago. The T-16, for children under 16, has also gone up, although in a more discreet way, and represents 8% of the total validations.
