Implementation Bus Zone 4.0
In Barcelona, there are different areas where tourist coaches can park and stop. These areas make up the “Zona Bus”. The City Council has reviewed it and created the Zona Bus 4.0 to improve the current model and reduce the impact of buses in certain areas of the city.
In terms of visitor mobility, Barcelona offers a good range of infrastructure and services, including specific services for tourists, such as the cable car and the tourist bus. The City Council has reviewed the fee for the use of coach parking, and the municipal government’s intention is for the average prices paid by these vehicles to increase fourfold, rising from around €20 per day currently to approximately €80.
In 2023, there were over 156,000 such operations in the city across the 222 designated parking spaces, with approximately 69,000 for pickup and drop-off and the remaining 87,000 for parking. This generated nearly one million euros in revenue for the municipal coffers, a figure that could rise to over four million euros.
The Zona Bus 4.0 initiative has the following aims:
- To reduce the number of coach parking spaces in the city centre
- To introduce mandatory prior booking for parking spaces in the city centre
- To place limits on the number of operations permitted per hour
- To relocate stops and parking spaces in order to reduce the impact on high-influx areas
- To create intermodal parking spaces outside the city centre
- To increase taxes on tourism
- To digitalise the process
- To automate the enforcement of time controls
- To make operations more flexible based on the city's situation at any given time