Urban Planning, Ecological Transition, Urban Services and Housing

Barcelona City Council is running a special operation to ensure safety, mobility and cleaning on the shortest night of the year. The city’s beaches will start being cleared at 6 am on Saturday 24, while metro and tram services will be operating around the clock. The City Police will also be stepping up operations at the beaches, in woodland areas and places in the city where crowds may gather. The Fire Service will also be running a special prevention operation in woodland areas in Collserola and Montjuïc.

Special operation by the City Police and the Barcelona Fire Service

The City Police will be putting 400 officers on duty to provide support at points around the city where crowds could build up and in the areas near the Parc de Collserola. Breathalyser and drug-driving checkpoints will also be set up at different points in the city. At the beaches, the police corps will be controlling the flow of people at each end of Barceloneta beach. In conjunction with the Mossos d’Esquadra police corps, the beaches will start being cleared from 6.30 am on Saturday, 24 June, so that cleaning services can get to work and leave the beaches ready for bathers.

In addition, a team of eight people will be working during the celebrations to detect and prevent anti-social behaviour linked to the consumption of alcohol and other substances, as well as in relation to the generation of litter.

In the days leading up to the eve of Sant Joan, the Barcelona Fire Service has been inspecting premises selling fireworks and the 122 fireworks sales booths in the city, ensuring they comply with safety measures. The corps has also validated six large bonfire sites: three in L’Eixample, one in Sant Andreu and two in Sant Martí.

During the celebrations, the Fire Service will be stepping up its presence in woodland areas to prevent fires there. The City Police will also have more officers at spaces where celebrations are being held, in crowded places, at the beaches and in the city centre. Authorised fireworks sales points will also be monitored.

Both the City Police and the Fire Service will be ready to activate the drone service to provide a swifter and more effective response in the case of an emergency. The drones will be used to gain aerial images, monitored in real time and not stored.

No waste at the beach

To minimise the effects of the celebrations at the city’s ten beaches, municipal cleaning services will be running a special operation starting at 6.30 am on 24 June, with an additional 328 workers and 217 vehicles on top of the usual cleaning team for the coast. For the eve of Sant Joan, 715 cardboard letter bins will be installed in addition to existing bins, along with 635 bins for recyclable materials, 80 for other rubbish, 56 extra containers and 15 metal contains for waste collected from the beach. This operation should allow the beaches to be ready for bathers first thing in the morning.

Purple point at the beaches and safe routes

A purple point will be operating at the Directorate for Beaches, at the Bogatell groyne, with five pairs of staff out and about on foot to provide awareness, prevention and support against sexist violence and LGBTI-phobia. This service will be in place from 10 pm on Friday, 23 June, to 6 am on Saturday, 24 June.

The City Police have designed safe routes from recreational areas to the nearest public transport stops.

Public transport open all night

During the celebrations for Sant Joan, the public transport network will be ensuring nigh-time mobility in the city by laying on extra services:

• Transports Metropolitans de Barcelona (TMB) will be operating the metro service all through the night, with trains running without interruption from 5 am on Friday, 23 June, to midnight on Sunday, 25 June (67 hours of continuous service). For more information, check the status of services on the TMB website.
• The Tram will also be operating all night: Trambaix and Trambesòs lines will be running services from 5 am on Thursday, 22 June, until 2 am on Saturday, 24 June (45 hours of uninterrupted service).
• Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat de Catalunya (FGC) will be operating trains until 2 am on Saturday, with regular services resuming from 5 am the same morning. For times and routes, check FGC.cat.
• Rodalies de Catalunya – RENFE will be laying on trains with more capacity between Barcelona and the coastal towns in the Garraf and Maresme areas. For times, check gencat.cat.