"Public transport should be considered an essential service, just like education or healthcare." This is one of the maxims of Joan Carles Salmerón, the director of the Centre d'Estudis del Transport Tèrminus and one of the experts in mobility in Catalonia. This week he has presented the book The bus and coach in Catalonia, the first publication that collects the entire history of the sector. All of this, at a time when buses have taken over from Rodalies, which is still struggling to recover from the crisis opened in January, after the fatal accident in Gelida.

The Secretary of Mobility and Infrastructures of the Generalitat, Manel Nadal, admitted today that Barcelona needs "at least five or six bus stations and interchanges" to cope with the strong demand the sector has experienced in recent years, and more especially since January, when the Rodalies crisis broke out. He said this at an event organized by the sector's employers' association, Fecav, which this Tuesday presented – together with the Terminus Transport Studies Centre – the book L'autobús i l'autocar a Catalunya, the first publication to cover the entire history of the sector, written by expert Joan Carles Salmerón. At the event, the Secretary of Mobility addressed the assembled entrepreneurs, to whom he also set homework.

In 2028, the panorama of passenger transport by road – that is, by bus – could change a lot, the current concessions of intercity road transport These are under the control of the Generalitat (Catalan Government), and a new tender will have to be held to award the new titles. This is unprecedented in the last 40 years, since the government transferred these powers from the state in 1985 and inherited a model that—despite introducing some changes—has become more than obsolete. The licenses already expired in 2003, but the government then decided to kick the can down the road and extend them for another 25 years.