In 2001, the Group of Towns with Urban Transport of the 2nd Metropolitan Ring (AMTU) was created with 16 founding town councils representing towns more distant from Barcelona, Spain. The AMTU's primary goal was to participate in infrastructure planning and to request additional funding for its members' respective urban transport systems, equal to that received by the18 townships of the 1st Metropolitan Ring. Crucially, however, the AMTU was also created in order to promote public transport and sustainable mobility throughout its metropolitan region. Today the AMTU has 55 members, allwith urban transport systems, which are home to a total of 1,700,000 people and accounted for 42,000,000 passengers in 2007 alone. In 2003, the AMTU asked to join the ATM and did so as a member with full rights, represented in the executive bodies. Within the ATM, the AMTU has advocated the idea that the two metropolitan rings could not be allowed to evolve at different speeds, but rather that public investment in different transport systems had to be the same for all towns throughout the Barcelona Metropolitan Area. Thanks to this lobbying effort, an agreement was signed by the Catalan government, the ATM and the AMTU, under which the latter's urban transport services would be included under the new 2007-2010 Programme-Agreementand would be allocated some 28 million in funding to be distributed throughout its townships over a 4-year period in order to enhance their urban transport systems. Consequently, by 2010, AMTU townships that sign on to the Improvement Plan will transport 15% more passengers, acquire 110 new vehicles and run services that are 30% more frequent. Use of private vehicles is expected to decrease by 8%. Thanks to its presence in the ATM, the AMTU has been able to emphasise how, whilst radial demand among the region'scities and Barcelona was well served by urban transport systems, a publictransport offer able to meet demand to travel between outlying cities waseither missing or deficient. It was moreover able to highlight the fact that this demand for inter-town travel was growing annually at twice the rate in the 2nd Metropolitan Ring as in the 1st, that is, that major shortfalls could be expected within a few years. Thanks to this decentralised perspective, the Catalan government decided to build a rail line linking the capital cities of the 2nd Metropolitan Ring, as well as to double and triple the lines currently in service. Other successes of the AMTU are also outlined. For the covering abstract see ITRD E145999
Samenvatting