The blue line that guides Juanjo García Otero insists on disappearing when he goes up the slopes of Baro Towerat a steep and somewhat isolated end of Barcelona. “Look, she’s already lost,” he realizes when he reaches a stop at the top of Llerona Street. Point to the screen GPS to demonstrate it: the itinerary that the navigator should trace over the map has vanished. Juanjo, driver of the neighborhood bus, answers that it happens every day, always in the same places. “When you get up here, the coverage. It must be because one is missing. antenna”, he deduces.
The complaints due to interruptions in the telephone connection that part of Torre Baró suffers have reappeared since, a little over a year ago, the bus travels through the area on demand, at the request of residents who, to take it, must first claim it from through a application or with a call. Regular travelers maintain that, in the same way that happens with mobilespublic transportation falters due to the poor signal that is captured in this bend on the edge of the city.
They assure that the deficiency translates into delaysalso in you wait sometimes long for a journey of a few minutes, but essential to overcome steep terrain, lacking shops and basic services. Neighbors testify that they have seen buses disoriented while the GPS is infatuated with not drawing the route, changing depending on where the passengers are picked up. passengers and where they get off.
“If the driver is new, he doesn’t know where he should go. In the tablet It says ‘redirecting’ and it doesn’t get you anywhere. Sometimes he turns around, other times he stays standing until he returns the coverage… We waste a lot of time,” complains Toni Ruiz, a resident of Torre Baró.
Elena Martín and Isabel Cano recount scenes unusual for the average Barcelonan. “We have had to indicate the route to more than one driver when the application fails. “They didn’t even know where they should turn,” Isabel testifies. “If they are regulars, they know the people, the route and the application. But if new ones come and they haven’t been notified, they don’t know how to get to the end or what the codes are. stops”, says Elena.
“Problem for travelers”
Fixed in Torre Baró, Juanjo moves easily through the neighborhood, without needing to depend on the whims of the navigator: he has gotten to know the neighbors and knows the routes they usually require. “Issues? None to me, the problem is for them -the driver appreciates-. We have warned of failed many times. If one enters petition “When there is no coverage, the system doesn’t know if I’m going up or down.”
In this case, the neighbors explain that the application is usually confused when calculating the waiting time and warns whoever requests the service that the bus will take longer than expected. reasonable. Cristina lives in the lower part of the neighborhood. “There is no coverage problem there, but I have had to send a request when the bus is up, it has not arrived or it has arrived late and I have been left waiting at the stop… There are days when waiting has been really bad for me and I have arrived late,” she laments.
Elena teaches a capture screen with a booking that was processed days ago: it appeared that the bus was going to be delayed 82 minutes. “It was for a journey from seven minutes to 10 in the morning. “It’s not normal, but sometimes it happens,” she confirms. She says that she ended up descending and ascending on foot through the detours that the mountain on which perches a handful of houses. “I can still do it, but an older person can’t afford it. And here you have to go down even to buy a sad loaf of bread & rdquor ;, she remembers.
TMB and the district
Transports Metropolitans de Barcelona (TMB) answers that it is not aware of mistakes nor delays recorded due to poor connection in Torre Baró, nor incidents with GPS, independent of the mobile line. For its part, the district of Nou Barris He admits that he knows the criticism about the lack of coverage in the neighborhood.
In any case, he emphasizes that the route can also be requested by calling. Some residents consider it a nuisance. “Many people walk down because they don’t call. It’s a roll”, says Cecilio González. His wife, Ana Rueda, does usually catch him: she underwent lung surgery, she must be over 110 steps that separate your house from a stop without marquee. “I asked that they put at least a couple of chairs. I need the bus four or five times a week to go to the doctor, do the shopping… Last week it took 10 minutes to arrive. “It’s unusual.”
The district maintains a working group with neighbors and TMB on the on-demand public transportation service. The City Council has expropriated land to build a roundabout in 2024, with which he says that “it is expected that the functioning of the line”. Ruiz distrusts that it will be enough to settle the setbacks if the connection is not repaired. “We already asked for it to be fixed before the on-demand bus was put in place, but TMB and the district are passing the buck. In the end, we keep seeing neighbors riding car. Unfortunately, we still need it,” he feels.
Talking on the phone, a dilemma
“No one has ever considered putting a repeater and thus avoid the lack of bus coverage,” reproaches the president of the Torre Baró Neighborhood Association, Valeria Ortiz: “They always delay us. We receive many comments and we don’t know how to give an answer. Talking on the phone here can be a dilemma. I must go out to the terrace to communicate. If the house faces the mountain, It’s a mess. There are days that are better than others, but things are bad in general.”
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A separate issue is the quarrel that spreads among neighbors for reserving the bus. “I have the alarm set every night at 12:10 to request the trip with 13 days of notice.” advance“, the soonest he leaves,” Isabel confesses. Elena does the same: “It’s sad, but this is ‘silly last’. Is a competition for arriving first. “It shouldn’t be like this.”
Sometimes, the application accepts that two travelers schedule their trip at the same time, but at points far from each other within the territory through which the bus travels, which extends to Meridian City and Trinitat Nova. Juanjo runs into the anomaly driving: “There are many things that fail, it is not normal. In that case, they say follow what the tablet says. And if things go wrong for a passenger, they should report it.”