478,000 vehicles leave Barcelona area for Sant Joan weekend

During the Sant Joan weekend, a traditional Catalan festival with fireworks, bonfires and outdoor parties, Catalans welcome summer. But with the festivities come traffic jams on the roads.

The three-day weekend was expected to be particularly busy as it coincided with the Formula 1 Grand Prix in Montmeló.

By Saturday afternoon, a total of 478,000 vehicles had left the Barcelona metropolitan area.

This represents a 4% increase over the 460,000 vehicles expected, according to the Catalan Traffic Service (SCT).

On Saturday, the AP-7 highway and the area around the Circuit de Catalunya were the most congested.

There were queues up to 9.5 kilometers in Penedès - between Castellet and la Gornal and Banyeres - and around 8 kilometers in Vallès - between Santa Perpètua de la Mogoda and Montornès.

Despite these conditions, traffic flowed relatively smoothly compared to similar holiday weekends, with no major delays or accidents reported.

More police, firefighters and 112 operators

Police will set up a total of 1,106 checkpoints on Catalan roads, with around 4,000 police officers, including the Catalan police Mossos d'Esquadra and local officers, deployed to ensure security. 

The Catalan Fire Department will also be reinforced with an average of four additional firefighters per station. 

Last year, between 8 pm on June 23 and 8 am on June 24, they responded to 934 incidents, mainly urban fires and vegetation fires. The majority of the incidents occurred in metropolitan areas.

Interior minister Joan Ignasi Elena said that the fire risk was not as extreme as in the previous two years due to recent rains, but stressed that the risk remained high.

The emergency phone line 112 has a total of 100 personnel during the peak activity period. The night of Sant Joan is the busiest night for this service, along with New Year's Eve.

To learn more about Sant Joan, have a listen to this episode of our podcast Filling the Sink of 2023.