Benidorm will take over the management of the urban bus to improve its efficiency and promote its use

Benidorm City Council will take over the management of the urban bus to improve its efficiency and promote its use, especially among the resident population and for work trips, thus advancing the sustainable mobility strategy. This decision, endorsed by the municipal technicians, has been communicated today by the mayor, Toni Pérez, during the Mobility Advisory Council and has had the support of this advisory body. A decision that will take shape in the long term, but on which the City Council has already begun to work.

As the mayor has stated, “various meetings have been held with the General Directorate of Transport of the Generalitat Valenciana with the aim of finding a solution to the current management system that would allow Benidorm City Council, and by extension the rest of the municipalities in the region, participate in decision-making regarding routes, stops and rates for the urban bus ”. "All this - he has deepened - with the aim of having a quality, effective and efficient collective urban public transport, thus overcoming the deficiencies that the current service has".

However, "the refusal of the Generalitat" to respond to the request of the City Council to create a metropolitan area similar to the one existing in areas such as Valencia, which also encompasses the municipalities of the region, has led Benidorm to "assume the management of the urban bus ”.

Toni Pérez has stressed that "they have not given us another option", since the plans of the Generalitat are"maintaining the same terms as now", which not only does not satisfy Benidorm, but also the region. In fact, all the municipalities signed a letter asking the Generalitat to form a managing body ”, a possibility that has not been addressed.

In view of this situation, the Councilor for Mobility, José Ramón González de Zárate, pointed out during the meeting that "a study on transport in Benidorm has been contracted to analyze and evaluate the different forms of management" that are : the tender to a specialized company, the constitution of a public company or the creation of a mixed company "in which the City Council can have an opinion and in which it has the support of a company in the sector that is in charge of providing the service".

De Zárate has advanced that as soon as the results of this study are available, the City Council will decide the management formula; and he has advanced that, whatever the option chosen, "it will be possible to sign agreements with other municipalities in the region so that they are not left out."

Similarly, compliance with labor regulations regarding the staff will be guaranteed.

Regional Government project

The intention of the Generalitat, communicated to the City Council at various meetings, is to renew the current urban transport project for Benidorm. At the time, Benidorm argued against the model proposed by the Consell "by leaving the City Council without competences in transport matters for the next 10-12 years, preventing it from acting on the rate policy or the design of the lines." Another of the City Council's objections to this model were "the negative effects it entails for the application of sustainable mobility policies included in the SUMP and the PTUS". An allegation that was based on a municipal report that assured that the Regional Government project "does not solve the problems" in the service pointed out in the PTUS such as the existence of "very close stops", "low commercial speed" and "discomfort travelers ”, among others.

All these problems, as already stated at the time, "mean that today the urban bus is not a mobility alternative for residents and workers, limiting its use to tourism."