BarcelonaThis Monday, when the power outage brought the entire country to a standstill, one of the most direct consequences was widespread mobility chaos. With no subway or trains and few taxis, which could only be paid for in cash, the only options left for getting around the cities were two: walking or taking the bus. However, the inability to use a cell phone created a new problem. "I could take the bus, but in the end I walk because without Google Maps I don't know how to get anywhere and I don't know how to check which bus to take," a girl in Barcelona's Plaza Catalunya admitted with some embarrassment.
This situation was repeated, in different formats, throughout the country. From taxi drivers who wouldn't take passengers because without a satnav they didn't know how to get to a destination, to Train passengers who were left stranded in Les Garrigues and they had to struggle to walk to Albi without the help of an app to tell them where to go. But, in the digital age, what can we do to find our way and know where to go when everything else fails and we don't have a phone in our pocket to help us?
"If you find yourself needing to find your way, you should always have a map and a compass with you," explains Marta Presseguer, a technician at the Catalan School of High Mountain (ECAM). Since no one usually carries this equipment with them in everyday life, she explains several ways to find your way.
Maps on your phone offline
To begin with, it must be clear that despite not having a signal, there are also mobile applications that have maps. offline as Maps.me either Wikiloc. "You can also do this with Google Maps if you've previously downloaded a map of the area. This will allow you to see where you are even if you don't have any data," notes the ECAM technician. Furthermore, the vast majority of mobile phones also have a compass gadget that works when you don't have internet access. Preseguer also recommends trying to mentally note down your usual routes, counting how many streets you cross on the way from home to work. Road signs that will tell you where the center of the municipality, a station, or an exit is," explains the technician.
Grouped streets
The president of Elite Taxi, Olivier Contel, warns that within a large city like Barcelona, signage is more limited and that other options are available. "All bus shelters have a small map that can help us find our way around," he exemplifies. Furthermore, it's worth remembering that the initial letter of Barcelona buses indicates whether their line is vertical (V) or horizontal (H), and that in much of the city, vertical streets have their own names (Muntaner) and horizontal streets, names of cities (Valencia).
Contel also explains that taxi driver training previously included a large part of knowing how to navigate the city with paper maps, but that currently, tests are carried out with a navigator. "Those of us from the old school know tricks, like, for example, that in many towns, street names are grouped by type. Therefore, if you want to go to Mozart Street and see that you're on Strauss Street, it's close."
On the other hand, if we lose our cell phone in the mountains, the sun can be a good way to know where north is, but the ECAM technician also insists that "we have to see if we can recognize a town, a mountain range or a peak, or a specific path." If the lack of coverage catches us at night, "we have to be lucky enough to have no clouds and to know the constellations." If this is not the case, "we can see if we see light pollution from a town or if we hear the sounds of a train or fast traffic that might tell us there is a highway nearby," explains Presseguer.
Beyond all these options, and although it may seem obvious, Contel also reminds us that, normally, the easiest thing is to ask the people around you: "On Monday it was incredible the tricks people did, lifting their cell phones with their hands to find a little line of coverage before stopping and asking for directions."
What is taught in school?
Although many adults wouldn't know how to get around without a cell phone, the primary school curriculum includes several sections devoted primarily to locating the cardinal points, using a map, and knowing how to get around. Inmaculada Sabadell, Josep Froilán.
Broadly speaking, according to the Education curriculum in first and second grades, students work on the guided creation of routes and journeys, the calculation of distances, and the design and interpretation of maps using physical and virtual media.
