The initiative has a budget of €1 million under the Destination Barcelona Tourist Sustainability Plan, provided by the Next Generation EU funds.

Barcelona de Serveis Municipals (BSM) is working on the development of Zona Bus 4.0. The project’s main goal is to create a smart system for monitoring the flow of tourist coach traffic to encourage more efficient use of public space.

The initiative stems from the increasing use of the current Zona Bus, which is an exclusive system for tourist and private coaches that allows these vehicles to circulate throughout the city. At present, private transport professionals have to register or reserve their stops and parking spaces through the SPRO mobile application. This generates a large volume of data which, when digitally processed, can be used to create an information system that helps to organise and even predict the flow and concentration of tourist coaches.

For example, it will be possible to determine the number of coaches visiting a certain tourist area during a specific time period. The project will also allow drivers to plan in advance, using relevant information to plan the route for the attractions they wish to visit.

The changes will also be visible in the coach parking and stopping areas, which will be digitalised and networked. Among other things, intelligent sensors and number plate readers will be incorporated. Work is also being carried out to install digital screens that provide information of interest about the service for coach drivers and visitors alike. Professionals will be able to consult, among other resources, offers of available parking spaces and locations of other nearby parking areas, while tourists will be able to see the existing public transport connections and the quickest route to the points of greatest interest.

All these measures are expected to have a positive impact on the optimisation of public space while minimising unnecessary travel, thereby encouraging more orderly mobility and reducing pollutant emissions.

The development of Zona Bus 4.0, which boasts a budget of €1 million and is expected to be operational by 2025, is part of the Destination Barcelona Tourist Sustainability Plan, which the City Council presented for opting for Next Generation EU funds. The plan is made up of a series of 19 projects intended to improve and diversify tourist offers and make progress in the energy transition and in the digitalisation of the sector.

Zona Bus, SPRO and Barcelona Nord, at the service of tourist mobility 

The Zona Bus consists of a set of spaces reserved for tourist coaches to stop or park in. They are always located close to spaces of high interest to the visiting public. There are currently 37 Zona Bus areas with a total of 168 spaces, 46 for making short stops and 122 for parking in.

The use of these exclusive parking and stopping areas for coaches allows more orderly access to these tourist attractions while improving traffic flow and the circulation of pedestrians in general.

Driving professionals record their stops and parking quickly and simply using the SPRO mobile application, created by BSM, and now considered a leading tool in the sector. In just one year of operation, SPRO-BUS has 4,052 active users and has managed to digitise 85% of operations, relegating the use of parking meters to the remaining 15%. There were 49,382 operations in 2022. The first four months of 2023 have seen the number of registrations reach 33,627, six times the amount for the same period in 2022.

Besides its use for the Zona Bus, SPRO has been the benchmark app for professional drivers using the loading and unloading areas (DUM) since 2020. SPRO-DUM currently has 147,109 registered professionals and operates in 10 metropolitan municipalities: Barcelona, Badalona, Castelldefels, El Prat de Llobregat, Esplugues de Llobregat, l’Hospitalet de Llobregat, Sant Joan Despí, Sant Boi de Llobregat, Sant Just Desvern and Santa Coloma de Gramenet. In total, 2022 will register around 9.7 million operations.

The Barcelona Nord Bus Station also plays an important role in the future management of tourist mobility in the city. The space is being transformed into a new tourist mobility hub in the city. Barcelona Nord aspires to be the main arrival and departure point for tourist coaches, promoting cultural and local tourism while contributing to making Barcelona a more orderly and peaceful city by decentralising tourist activity. The project is also integrated into the Barcelona Destination Tourist Sustainability Plan and boasts a budget of €4.8 million, provided by the Next Generation Fund.

BSM is featured at the UITP Global Public Transport Summit 

The vision for Zona Bus is one of the projects that BSM is showcasing at the Global Public Transport Summit—the most important international meeting of the public transport and sustainable mobility sector, organised for the first time in Barcelona by the International Union of Public Transport (UITP). BSM will be taking part as an exhibitor with a booth until 7 June, explaining its contribution to promoting new mobility in Barcelona through services such as Bicing, Endolla, the Aparcaments B:SM and technological applications such as SMOU and SPRO.

The UITP, which BSM is a member of, brings together 1,900 key players in the field of mobility, including public transport authorities, operators, research centres and service providers.