Standing passengers also in October: TIB saturation does not end with summer

PalmaThe 401 bus line of Transports de les Illes Balears enters Manacor with people already standing. They come from Cala Millor, passing through Porto Cristo. In the capital of the Llevant, it makes three stops where people do not stop boarding the vehicle and, inevitably, many passengers end up standing for more than 50 kilometers.

The Ministry of Mobility assures that since this summer, the 401 Cala Millor-Palma line “has had its capacity reinforced with the incorporation of four 18-meter buses, with a capacity of up to 75 seats, with the aim of responding to the expected increase in demand for service”. The fact is, however, that well into the month of October and with the high season already over, the line remains saturated, even beyond peak hours.

Government data confirm an increase in the use of the line: during the month of September, demand increased by 10.3% compared to the same month in 2025. In this sense, the Executive remarks that “the weight of resident users traveling with the Targeta Única or Intermodal has also increased”, which they estimate at 87%.

The possibility of continuing to expand the service, however, is conditioned by the current concession system. The Government already modified the contracts at the end of 2024 with an extraordinary investment of nearly 150 million euros, which allowed the planned offer to be increased by almost 50%, from 16.5 to 24.6 million kilometers per year. The TIB manager, Lluïsa Serra, admitted in May 2025 to ARA Balears that this contract revision formula had been practically exhausted and that, if new investments in buses and personnel were necessary, the Government would have to consider re-tendering the lines before 2030, the time when the current concessions end.

Users, desperate

The president of the Association of Public Road Transport Users, Marc Crespí, makes a devastating diagnosis. He believes that neither the train nor the bus provides a real and effective response to the needs of the residents. “The buses go with people standing and sitting in any way,” which he attributes to an “absolute saturation” and the inaction of the Government. “People are very angry because they have to stand and there is a generalized feeling that this is not working well,” he adds.

He considers that one of the main points that needs to be solved should be the shortening of travel times, although with the saturation of the road network, this also becomes complicated. “This will not be fixed either with works like the second ring road,” he points out and adds that, for example in the case of the train, a solution would be to expand the tracks, but “they do not want to act on the railway bottleneck that exists in Palma, nor bury the tracks,” because “to arrive in Palma there are only two tracks, and they cannot put more trains there.”

“It is a frankly disappointing and desperate situation,” he concludes.