Urban public transport study

OCU has made ​​a study of urban public transport in 18 cities. One of the main findings is that, despite how much public transport has gone up in the cities analysed, punctuality has barely improved in recent years.
For this study, OCU has analysed more than 100 bus routes and underground lines in 18 cities. In addition, in Madrid and Barcelona commuter rail lines have been included, the tram service in Zaragoza and Murcia the intercity bus. The study was conducted at both peak and off-peak times. OCU has analysed over 3,000 service frequencies to check the punctuality and adequacy of the transport as well as to verify that the information shown on the information screens corresponds to reality. The main conclusions of the study are published in issue 392 of the OCU Compra Maestra magazine  for May.

Buses. Only three of the 18 cities surveyed - Pamplona, ​​Logroño and Madrid - have delays below 10% compared to timetabled frequency. In other cities, late arrivals are common. In Palma de Mallorca, Santander, Zaragoza, Sevilla, and especially Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and  Murcia delays affect more than one in three buses. Murcia's case is particularly striking, since the average advertised frequency is 13 minutes, but which OCU found to be double this. Lack of punctuality has consequences for the quality of service. Waiting a few more minutes for urban transport creates inconvenience for travellers (delays, overcrowding, missed connections, etc.) which increases their dissatisfaction with the service they receive. Despite this data, the comparison with the results of a similar study conducted in 2005 is positive and punctuality has improved slightly. This improvement may be due to the fact that as a result of the crisis there is less traffic and therefore fewer traffic jams. It is also because in many cities timetabled frequencies have decreased compared to the previous analysis, thus making punctuality as promised easier to achieve.

This slight improvement in punctuality has little to do with the price rises that have occurred in most cities. Today only Palma has transport which is cheaper in relative terms than ten years ago. In other cities the increases have been widespread and well above the rate of inflation. These increases are shocking in the case of Madrid, Santander and especially Albacete where the cost of 50 trips per month has increased from 13.25 euros in 2005 to 35 euros in 2014.

The underground. Overall the underground has better results. Bilbao and Palma can boast to their citizens a British level of punctuality. None of their trains arrived later than scheduled. Barcelona and Seville are very close and only 1% of their trains arrive later than announced. The exceptions are Madrid and, above all, Valencia where 18% of the trains fail as regards frequency and late arrival. In Madrid this occurs in one in ten trains. This result, in the case of the Spanish capital, contrasts to that obtained for the buses which are the most punctual of all the cities analysed by OCU. However, Madrid stood out for the wrong reasons in the number of issues for users since more than half the time we found overcrowded wagons or platforms, so although adequate in terms of punctuality, the service is insufficient for the required demand.

The train. The results of the two cities where we analysed the frequency of trains are very different. While in Madrid, delays in frequency compared to the published timetable affect only 6% of the routes analysed, in Barcelona one in five trains is late.

Information for citizens. Public information screens reporting the arrival, on time or not, of the transport people are waiting for do not work equally well. They are unreliable in Las Palmas, Logroño and Murcia (they fail more than half the time). The information provided in Gijon, Malaga, Vigo and the Madrid commuter train is just acceptable (because it tends to indicate the arrival of the next service as it is about to arrive rather than when the previous train has just left, so its usefulness is limited). On the contrary, the information is accurate in the underground services in Bilbao, Seville and Palma de Mallorca and the Madrid bus service.

Prices. Punctuality varies substantially from one city to another, as do prices. If we consider the monthly travel pass, the most expensive city is Madrid (€ 54.60) followed by Barcelona (€ 52.75) and Valencia (45 €). Conversely the Bilbao underground (€ 34.60), Logroño (€ 33.97) and Badajoz (30 €) are the cheapest cities. The most expensive single ticket is Barcelona (€ 2.15) and the cheapest is Logroño (0.72 €).

In this situation, OCU calls for greater precision and accuracy in the information provided about service frequency. Too wide a time range does nothing to improve service quality. We also ask for quicker and more effective grievance mechanisms for late arrivals, something which now in the great majority of cases not occur.

OCU believes that the continuing rise in the price of public transport does not help to encourage its use, and therefore is no help in improving mobility in cities. In our view, it is still more surprising that this increase does not result in better service but rather, in many cases, a worse one. Therefore, OCU calls on all authorities involved to make the same effort to improve the quality of service as that made by the citizens to pay for it.

For more information (media) Eva Jiménez Tel: 917 226 061