Political impetus on the definitive role of the Camp de Tarragona tramway, the urban public transport project with the greatest impact ever proposed in the south of Catalonia, with almost ten million annual passengers expected when it is launched. Today the Government wanted to express its commitment to a specific, ambitious calendar, announcing the circulation at the end of 2026 of the first trams between the three large centers of the Costa Daurada (Cambrils, Salou and Vila-seca). In addition, the tender for the first seven convoys (48.1 million) by Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat de Catalunya (FGC), its future operator, has been completed.
The realization of the tram, administratively underway for many months, has a great second date, that of 2028. The year in which the two large cities of Camp de Tarragona, its capital and Reus, would be interconnected in comfortable 20-25 journeys. minutes. If the Generalitat makes the investment announced yesterday a reality, of 543 million euros, in barely five years the dream of having a real public transport network (46 kilometers of roads and 47 stations) in the second metropolitan area of Catalonia will come true. , with 335,000 inhabitants and 3.6 million annual tourists.
“It is a step forward that means a before and after. It is the responsibility of the country as a whole because in Catalonia there is not only one metropolitan area, the second most important metropolitan area is Tarragona and we must articulate it with public transport; the tram will be its backbone”, stressed the president Pere Aragonés during the presentation ceremony.
The Generalitat is committed to a public transport network that, if it becomes a reality, will connect the main communication axes of the Camp de Tarragona with its main cities, with an eye on its decisive tourism sector and its neighbours.
It is no coincidence that the first phase of the tramway (150 million euros) will be deployed on the Costa Daurada (2026), including strategic elements such as the Salou-Port Aventura station or the Reus airport. It will be possible to go faster because the layout of the old regional railway network, in the phase of dismantling with the arrival of the Mediterranean corridor, will be used. The Generalitat has already agreed on the route with the different municipalities.
The tram will connect the Reus airport with the future intermodal station in seven minutes, which the Spanish government will begin to build in 2026, 3.5 kilometers from the aerodrome, in the municipality of Vila-seca. A puzzle where, finally, all the pieces would fit, linking continental flights with high-speed trains, the conventional railway line and the Mediterranean corridor.
Almost a dream for a territory accustomed to historical errors in terms of transport, such as locating the AVE station far from Tarragona and Reus or designing its rail transport network thinking about trips to Barcelona. An incomplete and deficient transport network in the second metropolitan area of Catalonia that has condemned its neighbors to use the car: 82% of the inhabitants use private transport.
With the commissioning of the tramway, the Generalitat foresees a redesign of the bus lines, the most widely used public transport for urban and interurban journeys. The end of the concession coincides, in 2028, with the commissioning of the second phase of the tramway. In 15 years, the Government expects 12.8 million passengers to get on the tram.
The Tarragona-Reus connection (2028) will be key for metropolitan transport, beyond tourism, because it will finally connect the center of Tarragona with the neighborhoods of Ponent, the Rovira i Virgili University (URV) campus, the Sant Joan hospital of Reus and the Joan XXIII of Tarragona or the area of the petrochemical estates. A territory divided by old national highways where the majority of private vehicles circulate, in which the centers of the main cities and their suburbs are like two worlds looking askance at each other will finally be sewn together.
