Igualada, Vilafranca del Penedès, Lloret de Mar and Sant Feliu de Llobregat have in common the fact of being Catalan municipalities with a population that varies between 40,000 and 43,000 residents. Exactly the same number of users that Rodalies de Renfe has lost in Catalonia since the pandemic until 2024. The combination of accidents, works and breakdowns of the railway company, together with the obscene lack of punctuality, has caused a flurry of flights of users to other means of transport, saturating the intercity bus lines. The business model of public road transport is such that these bus companies purchase vehicles years in advance and even hire drivers in Peru.
Rubén abandoned the train years ago and switched to the bus to travel between Cerdanyola and Barcelona. He arrives in the Catalan capital on a bus completely saturated with people standing on the C58. “Maybe it’s a little more inconvenient, but I have much less stress than with the train. It will take me a long time to get back to Renfe and now I also have to take the metro”, he admits as soon as he gets off an express bus (the e3) of those that connect the Catalan capital with other cities. Users of the almost 30 express lines that connect Barcelona with different cities (some also have trains, such as Cerdanyola, Sabadell, Terrassa, Vic, Vilanova i la Geltrú) have been growing for years. In 2023, these lines transported 19 million passengers, last 2024 – when the Renfe crisis was already very evident – 23 million passengers used express buses.
Mariela and Antonio also get off another e3 bus. “We no longer consider the possibility of taking Renfe, we go directly by bus”, says this couple who live in Ripollet, “but touching Cerdanyola”.
From 2018 to 2024, Rodalies lost 42,798 weekday passengers. In 2018, 410,984 people traveled on Renfe lines every working day. Last year, 368,186 people did so. The escape of travelers has been spectacular and, even more so, if we take into account that from September 2022 until last July 7, all recurring Renfe users traveled for free because the government subsidized Rodalies to mitigate the effects resulting from inflation due to the war in Ukraine. Not even free: Renfe failed to increase users.
On some lines the leak was considerable. The R1 (which circulates from L’Hospitalet de Llobregat to Maçanet-Massanes passing through Barcelona, Badalona and all of Maresme) was used on weekdays by 105,742 users in 2018. Last 2024, every weekday, 90,374 people used it (15,368 people less). The R4 (which connects Sant Vicenç de Calders with Manresa via Vilafranca del Penedès, Martorell, Molins, Hospitalet, Barcelona, Sabadell and Terrassa) was used – always on a working day – by 134,213 users in 2018 and, last year, only 108,121 did so (26,092 people less). The R3 (the one that connects Hospitalet and Puigcerdà passing through Barcelona, Granollers, Vic and Ripoll) went from 27,422 to 24,750 (2,672 less). Considering annual travellers, the drop in users is notable. In 2018 the Rodalies lines transported 125 million passengers, in 2019 they rose to 128.5, but in 2024 they were 127.
Where did all those travelers go? The lines of the Catalan Generalitat Railways (FGC) do not always pass through the same municipalities as Renfe. However, municipalities such as Sabadell, Terrassa or Martorell and Manresa have Rodalies and FGC stations. Unlike Renfe, Ferrocarriles de la Generalitat has significantly increased the number of passengers. In 2018, 64,101,981 people traveled on the Barcelona-Vallès line and 68,857,296 last year. The Llobregat-Anoia line, in 2018, was used by 23,100,222 and last year by 28,632,606. In total – adding the two lines – the number of users increased by 10 million. This year the company expects to exceed 100 million travelers.
The Catalan Federation of Motorized Passenger Transport Companies (FECAV) has more precise data on the increase in passengers. In 2001, intercity bus service saw 34 million riders. In 2019, historic figures were reached, exceeding 84 million. In 2023, once the covid crisis was over, the record was broken, reaching 92 million users.
Monbus is one of the largest bus companies operating in Barcelona. They carry out intercity transport and are also part of the UTE which is carrying out alternative services to the R3 works. An unprecedented railway cut that for 16 months transforms the bus into a substitute for the train, transforming the Fabra i Puig station into the nerve center for connecting Barcelona with Granollers, Centelles, la Garriga or Vic.
Sources from the Monbus company claim that since 2022 bus services have not only recovered pandemic levels, but have increased exponentially. “The Vilafranca-Barcelona line, by train, must have stopped being competitive, taking into account the number of travelers we have on the buses. The services between Manresa and Barcelona have grown so much that the buses are very saturated,” assures the same company source. “We have increases in users that haven’t been seen for years,” he defends. Between January and October 2022, the Monbus line between Barcelona and Vilafranca transported 257,256 passengers. This 2025, in the same period of time, transported 524,802. The Igualada line went from 773,906 to 1,037,034 and the Manresa line went from 494,451 to 716,954.
The problem that different bus companies face is the lack of vehicles. “It takes a year from purchase to delivery of the vehicle. We also have problems finding drivers. In our case we have an agreement with a driving school and we hire drivers from Peru,” he explains.
Marc Janeras travels every week, several times, from Vic to Barcelona and is one of the visible faces of the platform Why don’t you take the train? “The alternative buses to the R3 cut work well, especially those going from La Garriga, Centelles and Vic. Renfe does not want to share the occupancy data of these buses with us,” he complains. “The part of the R3 where the train runs, from La Garriga to Latour-de-Carol, continues to be very unreliable. It is a line disconnected from the rest of the network but which continues with a systematic delay. Renfe seems to know how to manage the alternative bus service more than its own trains”, he concludes.
