Nuevo récord histórico de pasajeros para EMT Madrid en 2024

Autobús EMT Madrid. Imagen de archivo.

La Empresa Municipal de Transportes de Madrid (EMT Madrid) transported a total of 475,999,369 passengers in 2024 on its 229 municipal bus lines, a new record number that surpasses the 2023 closing with 21.4 million more users. October was the month with the highest demand, and May 14 was the day with the highest number of passengers in 2024. Additionally, the electric bike network bicimad exceeded 9,945,000 trips last year (2.3 million more than in 2023) with increasing coverage: there are already 630 stations spread across all districts of the capital, 19 more stations than in 2023.

EMT Madrid closed 2024 with a, currently provisional, figure of almost 476 million passengers compared to the 454 counted at the end of 2023: 21.4 million more, representing an increase of 4.71%. Across all networks, the daytime bus fleet transported a total of 462,075,855 passengers, the night bus fleet transported 7,282,891 passengers, a record for the «night owls» since 2007, and the university lines totaled 5,312,339 passengers.

In absolute terms, October 2024 was the strongest month of the year with 45,859,525 passengers on board (the best historical record for the month since 2007), while the day with the highest activity of the entire last year was May 14, with a record of 1,804,271 passengers in one day, also translating into a record since the 2007 records.

More passengers thanks to free days

In the last four years and during the activation of the free periods decreed by the Madrid City Council, a total of 60,965,573 passengers were transported, of which 12,736,991 benefited, including those transported on lines 001 and 002 on those dates. Specifically, throughout 2024, gratuity was activated up to five times, with a total number of passengers transported of 14,607,577 passengers.

In the ranking of the most requested lines in 2024 and for the ninth consecutive year, the L34 (Cibeles-Las Águilas) tops the list with 857,341 passengers on board. It is followed at some distance by the L70 (Plaza de Castilla-Alsacia) with 651,832 registered passengers and the L27 (Embajadores-Plaza de Castilla) with 608,438. With very similar demand data, this ranking continues with Circular 2 (584,909 passengers) and Circular 1 (581,349 passengers), followed by Circular 28 (Puerta de Alcalá-Barrio de Canillejas) with 549,959 and Circular 21 (Pintor Rosales-El Salvador) with 541,850 registered users.

The bus arrives according to demand and new lines are integrated

Since last November, the EMT Madrid bus network has 229 lines thanks to the incorporation of three new lines in El Pardo and one in Los Cármenes, previously operated by private companies. These are the 164 (Moncloa-El Pardo), the 179 (Plaza de Castilla-El Pardo), the newly created night bus N31 (Moncloa-El Pardo), and the 158 (Plaza de España-Los Cármenes).

Additionally, the municipal company closed 2024 with the launch of the first on-demand bus line (smart bus) for the Fuencarral-El Pardo district, benefiting the neighborhoods of Pilar, Arroyo del Fresno, Mirasierra, Montecarmelo, and Tres Olivos, areas that have seen a significant increase in residents and employees in the new job pools. The perimeter route of this on-demand service from EMT Madrid has been designed as a flexible route, adapting each trip to reservations made in advance by the user through an application.

As of 2019, the municipal company has created a total of 18 lines integrated into its network. Of its complete network, the gradual and complete electrification of a total of 36 municipal lines is already a reality, to which new 100% electric lines will be added throughout 2025.

Bicimad expands and strengthens: more stations and more bikes

In recent years, the number of trips recorded by the electric bike network bicimad, managed by EMT Madrid, has increased as the expansion of stations in all neighborhoods of the capital and the number of bikes in the fleet has progressed. In 2024, 19 more totems have been put into operation, so now there are 630 distributed in Madrid and 7,735 available bikes (with 248 more bikes than in 2023), reinforcing the commitment of the Madrid City Council and EMT to promote the use of electric bikes as a sustainable mobility alternative. If in 2023 the total number of trips was 7.61 million (4.2 million more than in 2022), the record for 2024 exceeded 9.94 million. The districts with the highest number of trips are Centro, Arganzuela, and Chamberí.

Currently, the service has 572,015 registered users, of which more than 130,000 are active users. The average number of new daily registrations exceeded 500 in 2024. /