City buses in various Catalan cities have been left in a legal limbo that municipal governments have taken advantage of to allow scooters to continue boarding public transport. The ban by the Metropolitan Transport Authority (ATM) affects the metro, trains, buses of Barcelona and the Barcelona Metropolitan Area (AMB) and interurban buses of the Generalitat. On the other hand, the bus service of the Catalan municipalities outside the AMB is owned by the town councils and, in this way, they are outside the restriction dictated by the ATM.
The difference in criteria means that there are 15 Catalan cities that allow entry with a scooter on the urban bus, although then they cannot do intermodality with local trains, Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat (FGC) or another interurban bus to go to the neighboring municipality. The dysfunction occurs in cities of considerable size such as Mataró, Sabadell, Terrassa, Manresa and Reus. Also in Figueres, Martorell, Abrera, Pallejà, Olot, Lloret de Mar, Sant Sadurní d'Anoia, Vilafranca del Penedès, Vilanova i la Geltrú and Cunit.
All these town councils, except Figueres, are part of the association of municipalities for mobility and urban transport (Amtu), where there are also other municipal governments that have opted to follow in the footsteps of the ATM and prohibit entry with scooters within their urban buses. This is the case, for example, of Sitges, the municipality of which the president of the Amtu, Aurora Carbonell, is mayor. Other large cities that are not part of said entity, such as Girona and Tarragona, have also opted for the veto. Outside of Catalonia, the Community of Madrid has also recently banned it after the spectacular fire of a scooter in the subway just a month ago.
The 15 municipalities that allow entry with a personal mobility vehicle on the city bus already made this decision when in January the board of directors of the ATM temporarily prohibited it after the fire of a scooter in an FGC wagon that caused all of them to explode. the alarms. The indefinite ban on scooters since November 1 has not made any of them change their opinion, and all of them remain willing to continue allowing scooter access on their urban bus lines.
Meanwhile, on public transport where it is prohibited, some users continue trying to enter with a scooter. If in February, when the regulations came into force, they disappeared almost completely from one day to the next, during the summer there was a rebound. In recent weeks, with the definitive ban, they have barely been able to see each other. Between February and September, the different operators have issued nearly 650 fines to users who have boarded the carriages with their vehicles, about three each day. According to data published by Ser Catalunya, the majority of the sanctions (492) have been imposed on the Barcelona metro. Around 80 have been in Rodalies, 58 in FGC, and 12 in the tram. No one has been fined on intercity buses because the drivers are instructed to prevent anyone who tries to get on with the personal mobility vehicle.
