Barcelona, April 21 – The chronic traffic congestion at Barcelona’s entry points, exacerbated since January by the Rodalies crisis, has prompted the City Council to launch an ambitious municipal plan. This initiative aims to diagnose and reformulate the city’s five major access corridors, with the first step involving the creation of digital replicas of urban and metropolitan mobility for each of these critical routes.
Barcelona’s Vision: From Highway to Human-Centric City
Barcelona is committed to transforming its urban landscape, moving away from the concept of a city as a mere highway. This vision is evident in past projects, such as replacing the historic ‘tambor’ with the Plaça de les Glòries on the Gran Via, the ongoing pacification of Meridiana Avenue, and the planned integration of the two tram networks along Diagonal Avenue, which will be transformed into a boulevard. These changes have altered the city’s traffic absorption capacity, especially given the high volume of people entering and leaving Barcelona daily.
Despite the broader regional implications, the city council has begun to address the situation of its access roads with a clear objective: to shift up to 250,000 daily car commutes to collective transport. Laia Bonet, First Deputy Mayor for Urban Planning, Mobility, and Housing, emphasized, “We have the responsibility and the goal to build a city designed for people and to guarantee the right to mobility for all, for its inhabitants and for those who come every day.”
Digital Twins: A New Approach to Traffic Management
The Meridiana Corridor: First in Line for Digital Analysis
The city has already initiated procedures to analyze the first corridor, Meridiana, which connects with the Vallès region and converges with the C-17, C-33, and C-58 highways. Through the creation of a digital twin, the city will meticulously study all aspects of traffic flow, identifying congestion points at different times of the day and analyzing the interaction between various communication routes and transport modes. This digital model will then be used to simulate the effects of different structural changes on the road, allowing for a comprehensive analysis of potential outcomes. The findings will inform the project, currently in tender, to reconfigure this major access point to the city.
Future Plans: Gran Via, Diagonal, and Ronda Litoral
Within the next six months, the City Council plans to tender for the creation of digital clones for three other key access roads: Gran Via North, Gran Via South, and Diagonal. Additionally, the behavior of the Ronda Litoral, a daily source of morning traffic jams affecting other city entry points, will be thoroughly studied. The council anticipates that the future railway access to the Port of Barcelona will reduce the volume of trucks, enabling a reformulation of the coastal area to allocate more space for buses.
Data-Driven Solutions for Barcelona’s Mobility
The digital clones and analyses will be based on the latest mobility flow data collected by the Barcelona City Council. This data will be gathered from various sources, including sensors, video cameras, mobile phone data, logistical operator reports on goods flows, and the Metropolitan Transport Authority’s (ATM) Mobility Survey on Working Days (EMEF).
The study of the Meridiana entrance from the Vallès will assess how the transformation and variation of the number of lanes between Fabra i Puig and the Sarajevo bridge will impact the road’s capacity. It will simulate up to 20 scenarios based on the day and time, encompassing the C-58, N-150, C-33, and C-17 access roads, and the diversion to the Ronda de Dalt, including flows of cars, taxis, trucks, and goods distribution.
Prioritizing Public Transport and Intermodal Connections
For each city entrance, a key priority will be the creation of double bus lanes: one on the right, adjacent to sidewalks, for urban buses with more stops; and another on the left for more direct interurban buses. These interurban buses are expected to terminate their routes at future stations in Plaça Espanya, the Fabra i Puig – Sagrera corridor, and Diagonal, facilitating better connections with Rodalies, the metro, urban buses, and the tram network.
With the expiry of historical interurban bus concessions, the Generalitat is currently redrawing the mobility map for Catalonia. “As a City Council, we want to have a clear opinion on how mobility entering Barcelona should be. We must be able to suggest and propose solutions and work jointly with all administrations,” stated Bonet.
Therefore, the analysis of these corridors will also serve to identify areas where bus lines to specific municipalities need to be increased to respond to particularly significant flows, reinforce connections between transport systems, or adjust peak hours for certain railway lines.
Looking Ahead: Conclusions and Continuous Evolution
By mid-2027, the conclusions from all corridor studies, including their interactions, are expected to be available. However, the analysis will not end there. The advantage of digital twins is their ability to incorporate ongoing variations and conduct new simulations, providing a continuous reflection of the city’s evolving mobility dynamics.
Source: elperiodico.com.cat
