Barcelona, among the world's top 25 cities with most sustainable urban mobility

According to the Sustainable Cities Mobility Index 2017 report, Barcelona is the 21st top city in the world and 15th in Europe in terms of sustainable urban mobility, above cities like Berlin, New York or Madrid in a classification headed by Hong Kong, Zurich and Paris.

The ranking is based on an analysis of indicators classified under three themes: people, planet and benefits. The first axis reflects the social and human implications of mobility systems based on indicators such as transport coverage, reliability, schedules or maintenance of infrastructure; the second considers the environmental impacts and measures the current levels of greenhouse gas emissions and atmospheric pollution, as well as efforts to reduce these emissions, infrastructure for electric vehicles and bicycles, levels of traffic congestion or the increase of urban green areas. Finally, the third axis analyses the efficiency and reliability of the mobility system regarding growth and support for companies, including important indicators like commute times in public transport in the city, ticket prices, and the contribution of the public sector to financing the system and overall use of the public transport network.

The city of Barcelona is located in 6th position in the world ranking and 1st in Europe in the ‘people’ category, 39th in the world and 27th in Europe in the category ‘planet’ –where the first ten positions are awarded to European cities–, and 44th in the world and 21st in Europe in the category ‘benefits’. These strong results for Barcelona are thanks to the compact nature of the city model and they can be improved upon given the city’s decision to develop eco-mobility, and sustainable public transport as part of the 2013-2018 Barcelona City Mobility Plan.