In the afternoon, before EIT Urban Mobility’s flagship Tomorrow.Mobility World Congress event, more than a dozen public transport operators (PTOs), public transport authorities (PTAs) and partner entities from the EIT Urban Mobility community gathered for a focused site visit at TRAM’s Barcelona premises. The visit, organised jointly by EIT Urban Mobility and TRAM, offered an opportunity to reconnect, share insights and set the tone for three days of discussion on the future of urban mobility.
A hands-on gathering to strengthen public transport collaboration
Hosts welcomed attendees with a programme that blended operational tours and short, pointed presentations. TRAM’s General Director, Humberto López Vilalta, opened by welcoming participants and highlighting how TRAM is working on concrete innovations to enhance the passenger experience, delivering tangible value and visible improvements for citizens across its network.
EIT Urban Mobility’s Head of Innovation Hub South, Martí Massot, highlighted the importance of prioritising public transport for being the most cost-effective way to cut emissions, and also of sharing knowledge and learning together as the best way to scale innovation. The line-up also included the perspective of Xavier Sanyer, Director of the Mobility Area at ATM, who emphasised the importance of integrated and inclusive mobility policies across Catalonia.
Speakers emphasised why meetings like this matter. “Seeing operations up close sparks practical conversations you can’t replicate in a meeting room,” said Martí Massot. He underlined the strategic value of the gathering: “These encounters help align operators and authorities around deployable solutions and shorten the path from idea to implementation.” He stressed the centrality of PTOs: “Operators are the frontline of mobility — their operational knowledge is indispensable when designing resilient, people-centred systems.”
Beyond formal remarks, the visit prioritised informal dialogue, including small-group tours of TRAM’s control centre and maintenance workshops, as well as an informal networking cocktail that allowed participants to meet up and connect. EIT Urban Mobility also used the chance to showcase some pilot project examples and share early results, prompting constructive feedback from operators who will ultimately scale or integrate those solutions.
Participants described the event as a practical precursor to Tomorrow.Mobility’s wider programme — a space to discuss priorities, surface local constraints and forge the working relationships needed to move proposals forward. For PTOs and PTAs, the visit reinforced their dual role as implementers and advisors: they not only operate services but also translate policy ambitions into everyday choices for millions of passengers.
As Tomorrow.Mobility convened the following day, the momentum from the TRAM visit was visible. Organisers said this model, pairing a hands-on site visit with a broader conference, is likely to be repeated: it creates more focused, action-oriented outcomes, and it strengthens the connective tissue between communities of practice.
In a moment where cities demand fast, reliable and sustainable mobility, occasions that bring PTOs, PTAs and innovators into the same room are proving essential. EIT Urban Mobility’s mission of fostering public-private dialogue and gathering all actors under one roof is crucial to ensuring that all stakeholders are aligned and speak the same language.
