The Government of Spain is promoting the Sustainable Mobility Law in 2023, a legal text that will be – as highlighted by the Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda in a press release – “a fundamental tool for promoting the decarbonization and digitalization of transport, contributing to the fight against climate change and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.”
The new law promotes clean and healthy mobility that opts for a digital and innovative transport system. The premise of sustainability is one of the cornerstones of this regulation. By promoting it, the Government intends to have a legal framework that promotes a more efficient and sustainable transport system, by encouraging active mobility, public transport and zero-emission fleets.
In fact, one of the objectives of the law is to reduce the percentage of greenhouse gas emissions from transport in Spain, which stands at 27%, five points above the European average.
In addition to emphasizing sustainability, the legal text opts for the digitalization of transport and social and territorial cohesion, regulating innovative solutions such as on-demand transport.
The law is based on five basic pillars:
- For the first time in the history of our country, the regulation recognizes mobility as a right for all citizens and an element of social cohesion that contributes to the achievement of the Welfare State.
- It aims to advance in the decarbonization of transport to comply with international commitments in this area and seeks to strengthen the role of low-emission zones regulated in the Climate Change and Energy Transition Law.
- It prioritizes active mobility and collective public transport as an accessible and affordable solution for everyone.
- It opts for a digital and innovative system in which transport companies, infrastructure managers, and administrations share data to optimize decision-making when planning new transport infrastructures and services that fully meet citizen demands. Thus, the digital instrument will gather updated mobility information, such as the supply and demand of different transport modes, and will help foster the creation of new value-added services.
- It aims to improve the quality of investment and spending decisions in transport and mobility.
National Sustainable Mobility System
The law creates the National Sustainable Mobility System, which will facilitate coordination between the different administrations with transport responsibilities. The system will consist of several instruments: a cooperation forum among all administrations or a consultative body to facilitate their cooperation with the sector and users, among others.
In addition, the legal text guarantees the State’s financial contribution to sustainable mobility in urban and metropolitan areas through a homogeneous and predictable system over time for all cities. It also establishes the obligation for administrations to incentivize and promote more sustainable mobility solutions.
As recently highlighted by El País newspaper, “urban transport companies are very attentive to the changes. The global trend to reduce or eliminate fares forces the search for a stable financing model (…) the regulation will allow for improved financing of urban transport companies by increasing the contribution of funds to metropolitan systems from 7% to 25% – from 450 million to 1.5 billion.”
Calculate carbon footprint
Furthermore, according to the new law, transport sector companies must calculate their carbon footprint and communicate it to end-users, as well as promote environmental and energy management systems.
Another unique aspect of this legal text is that it obliges companies with 500 or more employees per center to develop sustainable mobility plans that facilitate the use of public or shared transport for employee commutes to their workplaces.
It also promotes the creation of safe, healthy, and sustainable school routes and environments, allowing children to go to school actively and autonomously. In this regard, greater demands are established in transport and mobility planning.
The new regulation thus promotes new business models, but also affects traditional ones, such as bus concessions. The concession map is planned to be simplified, from 79 to 22 concessions, with half the routes, and the possibility of liberalizing the service on some corridors is opened up.
Complementing this regulation, the new Climate Change Law will require 149 municipalities with more than 50,000 inhabitants – and those with more than 20,000 with high pollution episodes – to establish low-emission zones (ZBE). However, the Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces considers that the necessary implementation of these ZBEs, except in the case of a few municipalities, will not be possible until the second half of the year for operational reasons.
Do you think administrations are prepared for this mobility paradigm shift? And society? We’re reading you!
