Mobility and transport

According to the Logistics Cluster of Catalonia, e-commerce (the industry behind our parcels and deliveries) has recently been growing at a rate of 10% a year. In 2024, from Black Friday and over the whole Christmas period, there were 5.6 million home deliveries in Barcelona, a 27% increase compared to other months of the year.

The significant increase in home deliveries in recent years has exacerbated disruptions to public spaces and mobility, with vehicles stopping on pavements to make quick deliveries and vehicles driving around unnecessarily when they find nobody at home and have to make the delivery at another time. All this leads to chaos, accidents and an increase in pollutant emissions.

Members of the public can help reduce the impact of urban goods distribution on public spaces by, for example, having online purchases delivered to pick-up points such as smart lockers or designated facilities, grouping together purchases to avoid excess travel or not requesting immediate deliveries.

Getting online purchases sent to a pick-up point

The city has over 1,300 collection points.  Some 98% of the population live within 200 metres of one (a shop or smart locker).

Getting packages sent to a convenient collection point benefits people and benefits the city. You can pick up the parcel on your commute, without having to wait for somebody to bring it to you. It also saves on journeys by delivery vehicles. As a result, we help contribute to a city with less traffic, less pollution and less traffic noise, freeing up pavements for pedestrians too.

As part of the Horizon 2030 Municipal Strategy on Urban Goods Distribution (EDUM), the City Council is aiming for 33% of home and office deliveries to be handled through goods distribution centres and for 40% of online purchases to be delivered at collection points. The aim is also to halve emissions linked to urban goods distribution by 2030.

The City Council also passed the Special Urban Plan on New Activities in Car Parks in the City of Barcelona, which allows short-term car parks to also include complementary services, mainly linked to urban goods distribution, such as smart lockers or collection points.

Since 2020, the volume of e-commerce deliveries in the city has been over 100,000 per day.

Most deliveries are made by vehicles, in public spaces:

• Vans and lorries represent 12.7% of vehicles km/year (2023).
• Vans and lorries account for 17.7% of total CO₂-equivalent emissions, 21.6% of PM₁₀ emissions and 32.8% of the NO₂ emissions in Barcelona (2023).
• In 2024, a total of 1,059 vans and lorries were involved in road accidents, causing 1 fatality, 11 serious injuries and 271 minor injuries.

Collection points

Collection points are convenient for logistics companies, users and the general public.

• Logistics companies have a hub with extended opening hours (all day in the case of smart lockers) where they can make several deliveries at once.
• Users can request delivery to a point which is on their usual route (avoiding the need for extra trips) and offers extended pick-up times.
• With fewer vehicles out for delivery, the general public benefit from reduced traffic and pollution in their neighbourhoods.

We continue to foster local commerce and municipal markets as they help to improve the local economy and generate wealth for your neighbourhood. If you opt for online shopping, you can help improve the impact that urban good deliveries have on public space by getting your orders delivered to a collection point.