It had been one of the demands of the GSMA, the association that organizes the Mobile World Congress, ever since the event first came to Barcelona. Then finally just before MWC15, representatives of the Barcelona City Council and the Government of Catalonia showed Jon Fredrik Baksaas, the president of GSMA, the route of metro line nine (L9) that will connect Terminal 1 of the El Prat Airport with the station at Fira Gran Via.
Whilst still in the testing phase, it is set to go into service in February 2016, just in time for the next edition of the Mobile World Congress. Government Representatives emphasized that they are on track to execute and start up L9 and when it goes into service, this line will be one of the most advanced and modern of any metropolitan transport system in Europe. These preliminary tests are needed before a line of this magnitude can go into service
93,000 attended the Mobile World Congress 2015 and this put a considerable strain on Barcelona’s current transportation infrastructure, so this addition will be warmly received by exhibitors and attendees to MWC16.
Construction work on shuttle train between El Prat Airport and city centre to commence in April
At the same time, the Catalan Ministry of Territory and Sustainability and Spanish Ministry of Public Works and Transport have reached an agreement to push forward by comencing work this spring on the shuttle train that will connect the centre of Barcelona with El Prat Airport. This work is expected to take three and a half years with a nestimated cost of around 295 million Euros. Once work has commenced they will open a tender to operate the train service and build the facilities, which is tentatively valued at an additional 75 million Euros.