The Council of Mallorca will invest 1.2 million euros in the installation of some 210 cameras on roads and other locations on the island, which will be used to monitor traffic and the impact of car rentals on traffic, among other issues. This is one of the measures announced by the island’s Minister for Territory, Mobility and Infrastructure, Fernando Rubio, following a meeting with representatives of Balear de Alquiler de Vehículos con y sin Conductor (Baleval) hire car lobby to discuss the future law that will regulate the entry of vehicles onto the island.
The cameras will be distributed across more than a hundred points on various roads on the island, both main and secondary, as well as on infrastructure such as the port. These devices will enable road surveillance and number plate reading, which will be done with the help of artificial intelligence systems. They will also be able to register bicycles travelling on the roads.
Rubio emphasised the ‘need’ for data in order to apply restrictions on the entry of cars and explained that authorisation will be sought from the Balearic Port Authority (APB) to control the number of cars entering and leaving Mallorca. Rubio highlighted the importance of dialogue with Baleval because, in his opinion, the car rental sector ‘has to be part of the solution’.
“Regulation is absolutely necessary, which is why the council is committed to dialogue with the employers’ association when determining the maximum number of fleets that will be allowed to circulate on the island. In this way, we will reach an agreement on the methodology for setting the number of vehicles, taking into account the opinion of the companies currently operating in Mallorca,” he said.
The minister recalled that an initial study of traffic load on the island’s roads had already been carried out and that these cameras, which will be installed over the next three months, will help to update it.
The contract for the project to install cameras in the Serra de Tramuntana was recently amended to include those that will be located in the ports of Mallorca with a view to collecting data for the drafting of the law.
As for the deadlines for the vehicle limitation law and whether it could be approved in the current legislative session, he stressed that they are ‘working to pass the law’ but want to do so ‘hand in hand with the sector’ because, in his view, it is ‘essential’. The minister did not clarify the deadlines for the approval of the law, although he did stress that they are ‘working hard’ to make it a reality ‘as soon as possible’ and clarified that they will not approve a law that is ‘contrary to the social and representative sectors of the Balearic economy’.
When asked how the Council of Mallorca government team will vote on the PSIB’s bill on this same issue at the next plenary session, he stressed that they are ‘willing to reach a political consensus’ and, to achieve this, they will forward their bill to the parties so that they can make additions. For his part, the president of Baleval, Cristóbal Herrera, rejected the development of this type of legislation because restricting freedom of movement and enterprise was a ‘mistake’ as it ‘could cause more problems than it aims to solve’.
From his point of view, in order to solve the congestion problems in Mallorca, it would be necessary to ‘invest in more public transport, better infrastructure and technological solutions’, something that, in his view, has been demonstrated by the experience of Ibiza. He has therefore accused the Ibiza Council of ‘putting the cart before the horse’ by establishing a vehicle restriction and now implementing a vehicle control system.
The representative of the business association has called for a ‘slow’ approach based on ‘data’ on the actual number of vehicles on the island, and has requested that these cameras be put into operation.
When it was pointed out to him that the Mallorca Council had already carried out a load study on this matter, he asserted that the study was based on ‘estimates that have been proven to be false’.
When asked about the number of rental cars that circulate each year in the Balearics, the president of the association suggested that ‘they do not have that data’ and that they do not know how many cars were rented last year, but he stated that they represent 80% of the volume of vehicles. Herrera pointed out that the study indicated that it was necessary to ‘reduce the feeling of overload’ but questioned how that feeling is assessed.
With regard to this accusation of using ‘false estimates’, Rubio acknowledged that it is “logical” to want to have data, but denied that the study was based on ‘false data’. The minister defended that it was carried out by a company specialising in data and provided ‘very important’ information, which needs to be updated and improved. This meeting is part of a series of contacts that have taken place over recent months to gather the concerns of all the sectors affected.
So far, this consultation process has included the holiday home sector, shipping companies and, on Monday, car rental companies. Last week, shipping companies were asked to provide detailed information on the volume of vehicles arriving on the island, specifying how many have foreign number plates. Once this data is available, a starting point can be established to determine the limits for rental car fleets on the island.