Mobile support for title validation has been available for two and a half years It was only available for Android devices with NFC technology — a technology for connecting devices and exchanging data in a confined environment — although the card could be recharged and consulted using all smartphones. Now, the T-mobility Wallet is already available for iPhone, a new feature that improves the travel experience for public transport users. The possibility of validating tickets directly with the mobile phone, without the need for a physical card, arrived on the iPhone on December 27 to offer greater comfort and security to travelers.

Socialist Government's handbrake on the ambitious plan to create deterrent macro-parking lots - or park and ride, in its English name—which had been designed by the previous government of Junts and ERC and which was intended to relieve car congestion in Barcelona. The obvious failure of the first of these macro-parkings, which was inaugurated last summer in Martorell, has led Salvador Illa's executive to halt the thirty projects that had been started and to rethink the need for these large infrastructures, which were supposed to be a stimulus to improve mobility and reduce pollution in the metropolitan area.

Apple has withdrawn the T-Mobilitat application from its software download market, the Apple Store, which allows users to access public transport in Barcelona by validating their ticket with an iPhone. The long-awaited app, which Android users have been using for three years, became available for download just a month and a half ago, but this Friday it disappeared from the virtual application store for iPhones. However, the Metropolitan Transport Authority (ATM) assures that this situation is "temporary" and clarifies that travellers who already have T-Mobilitat downloaded on their iPhone can continue using it, as it works correctly.

It's only been a year since he was appointed director of the Autoritat del Transport Metropolità. Before that, Manuel Valdés - an engineer by training - had spent 17 years at Barcelona City Hall, where he promoted the new bus network, the low-emission zone, the superblocks and the tram along the Diagonal. All this experience, he says, has helped him to delve into the "engine room" that is the ATM: "In the morning I want to see the message that everything is working normally."

The drastic discount in ticket prices will be felt – positively – by commuters' pockets, but also – and clearly negatively – by the public transport system's coffers. The Metropolitan Transport Authority (ATM) has approved this afternoon to halve the price of most transport tickets from September 1 to December 31. Thus, T-Usual and T-Jove monthly and quarterly tickets will be half price and T-Casual 10-journey tickets will cost 30% less. The price of tickets for single-parent or large families and the unemployed, which already enjoyed a discount, will also be halved, as will Berguedà and Ripollès packs.

If there is one project, apart from the serious backlog in renewables, that shows that it is time for everyone, administrations and private companies, to get their act together again to modernise the country's infrastructures, it is T-Mobilitat. The mess in the management of this change, which should bring the ticketing system up to date with most European cities, using top-up cards or paying directly with a mobile phone, is incomprehensible. The first steps were taken ten years ago, in 2012, and it has been eight years since the temporary joint venture SOC Mobilitat (formed by CaixaBank, Indra, Fujitsu and Moventia) was created. This joint venture had to specify and implement a project promoted by public administrations, which after all are the ones that take on the main cost. It would take too long to list the many delays but it is only necessary to note (as is clear in a new legal report to justify the administration's motives for a new modification - the fourth - of the original contract) that right now the roll-out date is unknown, and there is no option of going back. On the contrary, the Metropolitan Transport Authority (ATM) has had to advance up to €14.5m to the joint venture – €10.6m have already been paid since last December – to provide liquidity and allow the work to be completed. The reason is that CaixaBank, the financial partner, threatened to pull out of the project last autumn. The reasons why it finally stayed part of it are not clear, but the fact is that it has now been the administration that has advanced the money.

T-Mobilitat, the controversial project for top-up transport tickets to replace the current cardboard tickets in public transport, hung by a thread last autumn. After CaixaBank threatened to withdraw from the project, the Metropolitan Transport Authority (ATM) made a move to avoid it from happening and ensure that T-Mobilitat went ahead with the initial configuration, i.e. developed by a consortium (SOC Mobilitat) led by CaixaBank as well as Indra, Fujitsu and Marfina.