A survey on household mobility facts and behavior has been conducted in 2007 by the Consorcio de Transporte Metropolitano del Area de Sevilla with the help of Instituto Apoldo. 35000 interviews across 46 municipalities of the urban area of Sevilla targeted to 12 years old and above population (85% of a total population of 1,438,451) have been recorded in the months of October and November. The study has been funded 60% by the Consorcio and 40% by the Province of Andalusia.
Here is a summary of the key findings. The average number of
trips per person per day is 2.33 out of which 69.5% are done
with mechanized modes and 30.5% by non-mechanized. The
use of private cars among mechanized modes is still very
important, 80% of the total trips, leaving a share of 20% to
public transport where urban and suburban buses are the
favorite modes amounting to 82.7% of the journeys. The railway network (RENFE) represents 8% of the daily trips and a recently opened tram line Metrocentro should progressively add to the share of rail transport.
According to main activity profiles, workers represent 45.70% of the daily trips made and students represent 13.12%, but pensioners represent 18.12% of the trips, thus
overweighting the student’s mobility. In confronting mandatory daily trips for working or studying and non-mandatory trips for any other reason, the majority is
represented by non-mandatory trips 55.43% versus 44.57%.
The typology of trips show that 44.3% of trips are made inside the main city Sevilla, 25.6% of journeys are done from Sevilla to the suburban area, and some 27.5% represent trips inside municipalities of the metropolitan area outside of Sevilla. Very few trips (2.6%) are made with Public
Transport from suburb to suburb which is the most common situation in European metropolitan areas. A point has to be made about cycling.
Thanks to a sound policy towards soft modes initiated after the positive experience in 2006 during the European Week for
Mobility, cycling is encouraged in the metropolitan area of Sevilla. The survey figures show that among the cyclists,
61.9% use their bicycle every day, be they private owned bikes or public bikes borrowed from the BUS+BICI scheme, thus
demonstrating cycling is considered a sound way of achieving daily mobility needs.
A central data base registering bicycles using specific bar codes has been opened in 2008 by the city of Sevilla to discourage robbery, and mostly the BUS+BICI scheme
allowing public transport pass owners under certain condition to borrow for free a bike at main bus stations, has been launched by the Consorcio de Transporte Metropolitano del Area de Sevilla early 2008 (see EMTA News n°33 July-August 2008) Although the vast majority (91.8%)
of cyclists in the area of Sevilla do own their bike, the growing success of BUS+BICI just lead to an extension of the fleet (now 150public bicycles ) and a new installation in
the bus station Plaza de Armas.