Vallirana replaced an empty bus line with a service that comes when you ask
A town strung along a valley road, with housing estates on slopes the bus never climbed. Today the same municipal budget moves four times as many people.
- Setting
- Small town, valley layout
- Service model
- On-demand transport
- Replaces
- Low-frequency fixed bus line
- Booking
- App, web and phone
Results
From 75–90 minutes between buses to a 13-minute average wait for a vehicle.
More trips served for the same operating budget — the metric that renews contracts.
Four times as many people using public transport in the same town.
The challenge
A bus every 75 minutes, on a route that missed half the town
Vallirana runs for kilometres along a single valley road, with residential estates climbing the slopes on either side. The fixed line followed the main road because a large bus could not do anything else — so the streets where people actually live were a walk away, uphill.
With a bus every 75 to 90 minutes, the service was only useful to people with no alternative. Everyone else drove, ridership stayed low, and low ridership was the argument against running more buses. The town hall cut the service back, which only deepened the cycle: less supply, less demand, less supply. Citizens without a car became isolated at home, with no access to the services in the town centre.
What we deployed
Smaller vehicles, virtual stops, and a route decided by requests
- 01Right-sized vehicles
Small vehicles that can climb narrow hillside streets a standard bus cannot enter.
- 02Virtual stops
Pickup points placed where people actually live, adjusted without any street works.
- 03Three ways to book
App, web and a phone line — nobody is excluded for not owning a smartphone.
- 04Pooled routing
Requests are grouped in real time so shared trips stay short and predictable.
The fixed line was not deleted — it was relieved
Where the main-road service still made sense, it kept running. On-demand vehicles took the hillside streets, the off-peak hours and the trips the timetable could never justify.
How the assignment rules workOn site
The same ATM tickets as any bus in the region — on-demand, without a special fare. 
Requested minutes earlier — the vehicle comes to the stop nearest home. 
The driver is guided stop to stop as requests arrive — no fixed route to follow.
Joan SolerCEO, Soler i Sauret“Citizens without access to a transport service became totally isolated — they stayed at home, with no access to the services in the town centre. These are scattered residential zones with isolated houses; even with a regular line they are difficult to cover.”
“An important demographic objective are elderly citizens — some have difficulties with new technology, so they are also offered a telephone number to request a ride. The response has been very good: in a short time our ridership figures have multiplied by up to four times compared to the traditional system.”
From the passengers
“Whenever I come back from school I use the app to request a ride. It picks me up at certain stops, I indicate where I want to get off, and it drops me off.”
“From the social services centre to my house, I would take an hour and a half, almost two. Now I can get home without needing to depend on other people — I’m very happy really.”
“I found out about it through a friend, and saw I could book through the app or on the phone. I can book a ride when I want and where I want, and it drops me off exactly where I need to be.”
Similar challenges
The problem isn’t specific to valley towns
What made Vallirana hard was not its size. It was a fixed line that could only follow the main road, a bus every 75 to 90 minutes, and the cycle that followed: low ridership justified less service, and less service meant lower ridership.
Any town where housing climbs away from the road the bus can use, and where cutting frequency has stopped saving money, shares that pattern. Where it holds, so does the model: smaller vehicles, virtual stops on the estates, and a route set by requests — the same budget carrying far more people.
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