The VTC either transport vehicles with driver have become the competition of the cab, and there are more and more in the big cities. The Barcelona’s town hall has approved a controversial law to regulate them, and that has led to some absurdities, such as the curious and strange bumper What do they wear? VTC of the companies Bolt Y Movea.
As our colleague Noelia López in Auto Bild tells us, a few weeks ago the Barcelona City Council approved new traffic regulations for VTCs, many of which have never been followed in Europe.
One of these standards requires that all VTC who work in the city, wear the DGT Zero Emissions or ECO label. A rule that seems reasonable, taking into account the high level of pollution in large cities, although this has left VTCs with polluting cars out of work.
The controversy of the VTC in Barcelona
But the measure that has received the most criticism is the one that forces all VTC vehicles in Barcelona have a minimum length of 4.90 meters.
Few private cars reach 4.90 meters, so with this new rule, most VTCs in Barcelona are prohibited from working in the city.
We assume that this measure is aimed at reduce the number of VTCs in the city centereither encourage group travel. But it has left a good part of private drivers unemployed, whose only solution is to buy a bigger new car.
To overcome this difficulty, companies movea Y Bolttwo groups of VTC drivers, have devised a curious solution: take the bumper off the car and so lengthen the vehicle up to 4.90 statutory meters.
According to both employers in Auto Bild, the bumper “is approved”. They assure that they have been testing different systems for months that would allow them to comply with the standard of the dimensions for the VTC imposed by the government until they find one that “complies in resistance, aerodynamics and tension”. More than 300 vehicles already carry it.
Apparently the stranger bumper of the VTCs of Barcelona To measure 4.90 meters complies with traffic regulations, but the question remains as to whether the Barcelona City Council will accept “the trap”, or will tweak the rule to prevent the use of this type of “lengthening” of vehicles.