Torre Baró is steep, isolated and now nine minutes from a ride
A hillside neighbourhood on the edge of Barcelona where the gradient defeats both walking and conventional buses. Riders rate the on-demand service 4.7 out of 5.
- Service
- ElMeuBus, launched in 2019
- Setting
- Isolated hillside neighbourhood
- Service model
- On-demand transport
- Replaces
- Perimeter fixed bus line
- Booking
- App, web and phone
Results
From a 45-minute headway to a short wait for a vehicle that comes to you.
The pilot’s reception convinced Barcelona and TMB to extend the model to other areas of the city.
Medical centre, market, schools, the casal d’avis — and the train station that links to central Barcelona.
The challenge
When the hill is the barrier, frequency alone cannot fix it
Torre Baró climbs a steep slope at the northern edge of Barcelona. The streets are narrow and the gradients are severe — conditions that keep standard buses on the perimeter and turn a nominally short walk to the stop into a serious climb.
For older residents and anyone carrying shopping, that climb is the whole problem. Coverage was thin, waits were long, and most residents either drove or simply did not move — a bus every 45 minutes at the bottom of the hill is not a service they can use.
What we deployed
Small vehicles that climb, and stops where people live
- 01Small vehicles
Sized for narrow, steep streets a standard bus cannot enter.
- 02Uphill virtual stops
Pickup points on the slope, within reach of the housing they serve.
- 03Three ways to book
App, web and a phone line for residents without smartphones.
- 04Pooled routing
Shared trips grouped in real time so the service stays affordable.
The geography decided the vehicle
The service was designed around the slope: smaller vehicles able to work the narrow uphill streets, and virtual stops placed on the hill rather than at the bottom of it.
The pilot’s clearest lesson: the model succeeds by breaking the digital gap. Booking works by phone as well as app, so the riders who most need the service are never locked out of it.
How the assignment rules workOn site
Branded as elMeuBus — the city’s own service, promoted by the council and operated by TMB. 
Booked in the app, or by phone for anyone the digital gap would otherwise exclude. 
Each pickup named on the driver tablet — boarding at the metro, dropping at the stop requested.
Carlos SauraHead of Bus Control Center, Transports Metropolitans de Barcelona“One of the learnings of these two years of pilot test has been that the success of this new model of operation is to break with the digital gap.”
“The service has had very good reception by the users, the score of the service being an 8.7. The pilot experience and the good results have led the City Council of Barcelona and TMB to consolidate the demand bus in other areas of the city — with two clear objectives: to improve the service to the citizen, reducing waiting and travel times; and greater economic and environmental sustainability, since the bus only performs requested movements.”
Similar challenges
The problem isn’t specific to Barcelona
What made Torre Baró hard was not its distance from the city. It was the slope: narrow streets and severe gradients that keep standard buses at the bottom of the hill and turn a short walk to the stop into a climb few older residents can make.
Hillside neighbourhoods, old town centres and any district a full-size bus cannot enter share that pattern. Where it holds, so does the model: small vehicles that climb, stops where people live rather than where a bus can turn, and a connection to the network at the foot of the hill.
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