How does transport on demand in the Community work and which residents of the Marina Alta benefit?

The notion of mobility as a social right has led the Generalitat to adopt a series of measures that benefit the municipalities of the Valencian Community in matters related to public transport. One of the initiatives launched recently has been financing for on-demand passenger transport.

Bus users in Dénia

The aid package was announced in early 2022 and was finally launched at the end of this summer. 5 million euros in direct aid for municipalities with less than 5.000 inhabitants throughout the Valencian territory that meet population criteria.

These criteria are set in those localities in inland areas, which due to their mountainous character and demographic trends such as depopulation, aging and low population density show the urgent need to provide a specific and adapted public transport service.

What is transport on demand and how does it work?

This type of public transport provides a service that depends on prior request of users residing in the localities where the service is provided.

So, the itinerary and the schedule require that request by the route that the company in charge of offering the trip considers best. Therefore, the possibilities of requesting it range from a phone call to booking the trip electronically.

As collected by the Decree Law 11/2022 of the Official Gazette of the Generalitat Valenciana The objective of transport on demand in the smallest towns of the Valencian Community is to reduce the lack of connection by public transport. In addition to meeting the basic needs of the population based on four principles: sustainability, quality, effectiveness and efficiency.

Preferred types and destinations

The DOGV points out that public transport on demand will be aimed, above all, at cover trips to health, educational, social or administrative centers to which the applicant population is attached. It will also benefit those people who need to get to the regular passenger transport stops in the county seat. For this reason, regular services for general use do not fit into the subsidy.

The document states that the services may be provided by two types of transport:

• discretionary services. According to the National Institute of Statistics, this type of service is one “that performs non-regular passenger transport services without being subject to any itinerary or schedule. This concept encompasses both the urban and the interurban”.
• Regular special use services. The Ministry of Transport points out that this term refers to those that "ensure the transport of certain categories of travelers to the exclusion of others."

aid requirements

The beneficiaries of the aid are the Town Councils of each municipality that meet at least one of the following requirements:

• Bus service level: number of shipments per direction on a weekday that is less than or equal to 1 shipment.
• Population: number of inhabitants less than or equal to 5.000 inhabitants, according to data from the National Institute of Statistics, corresponding to the Official Population Figures of the Spanish Municipalities revised in the Municipal Register of 2021.

How much money do localities receive?

As has been said, the item allocated by the Generalitat to this type of transport is 5.000.000 euros. To assign a specific amount to each locality, a series of distribution rules:

• A fixed amount of 5.000 euros is assigned to each of the beneficiary municipalities. This amounts to 7.000 euros for those considered at risk of depopulation.
• 50% of the remaining amount of the line of aid is distributed among the beneficiary municipalities proportionally based on the number of entitled inhabitants in 2021.
• The other 50% of the remaining amount is distributed among the towns based on the distance from their main nucleus to their reference hospital.

Villages of the Marina Alta benefited

Do the grants expire?

The DOGV specifies that these aids will expire after two years from the entry into force of the Decree that establishes them. In any case, the municipalities that have accepted the aid must fulfill a series of obligations, such as reimbursing the Generalitat for the part of the subsidy that has not been used at the end of its term. However, this aid is compatible with others from the Generalitat itself, from other national or international administrations or public or private entities.