Barcelona, 18 April 2024. This morning saw the presentation of the 7th TRAM Barcelona Open, the international wheelchair tennis tournament which is now in its 7th year. Once again, from 22 to 26 May, the facilities of the Real Club de Polo de Barcelona will be hosting the world’s best players in this sport. In this seventh edition of the event, which is being organised by the Johan Cruyff Foundation with title sponsor TRAM, the Barcelona tram company, and other sponsors Moventis, Quirónsalud, La Vanguardia and Uniqlo, some 50 players from over 22 different countries will be taking part.

The presentation ceremony took place at the Real Club de Tennis Barcelona, as part of the Barcelona Open Banc Sabadell – 71st Conde de Godó Trophy, and was attended by the Sports Councillor of Barcelona City Council and Sports Delegate for Barcelona regional Council, David Escudé; the Director General of TRAM, Humberto López Vilalta; the Corporate Vice-president of Internal and Institutional Communication of Moventia, Silvia Martí; the Sports Director of the Royal Spanish Tennis Federation, Javier Soler; the Chairman of the Catalan Tennis Federation, Jordi Tamayo; the Head of the Tennis Section of the Real Club de Polo de Barcelona, Carlos Homedes; the Regional Director of Business Development of Quirónsalud, Carlos Seguí; the Director of Sponsorships and Communication of La Vanguardia, Alejandro Teodoro; the ambassadors of the TRAM Barcelona Open, Conchita Martínez and Alex Corretja; the Director of the Cruyff Foundation, Pati Roura; and the Director of the TRAM Barcelona Open, Jose Coronado.

Qualifying tournament for the Paris 2024 Paralympics

 In its seventh edition, the TRAM Barcelona Open has held onto its position in the top category – ITF1, making it the only tournament in this category in our country. This year it will once again be showcasing some of the world’s most exciting players, consolidating it as one of the 10 most important tournaments in the international Uniqlo Wheelchair Tennis Tour. It is also a qualifying tournament for the 2024 Paris Paralympics, as well as the preferred warm-up tournament for the clay court tour prior to the French Open.

Wheelchair tennis is a spectacular sport, with more than 1,000 players in the international ranking and 180 tournaments a year in 40 countries around the world. The only difference to standard tennis is that the ball is allowed to bounce twice, if necessary. Even so, players at this level of competition only use a single bounce on 80% of the points, and the speed of serves can reach 150 km/h.

With the TRAM Barcelona Open, for five days the capital of Catalonia, a key city for the worlds of tennis and sport in general, will become a major hub for adapted sports and, on Saturday 25 May and the morning of Sunday 26 May, it will host the finals in the doubles and quad categories, before the grand finals in the men’s and women’s singles categories.

Social goals

In addition to its sporting objectives, the TRAM Barcelona Open also has social goals, specifically bringing visibility to wheelchair tennis and the values it represents – such as equal opportunities and social inclusion (with a special focus on children and young people), through exhibitions, clinics, talks to schools and different activities held to coincide with the tournament.

The TRAM Barcelona Open will be open to the public, and tickets, which are free of charge, can be reserved through the tournament website (www.barcelona-open.com). The tournament can also be followed live through its official mobile app (TRAM Barcelona Open) available through the App Store and Google Play Store.

TRAM

TRAM is the public transport company that has been managing the Barcelona Metropolitan Region’s two tram networks for the past 20 years in the most efficient way possible, offering the best service to passengers for quick, comfortable and safe travel. It is the most accessible public transport mode and the most highly rated since it was launched, according to the annual Working Day Mobility Survey carried out by the Metropolitan Transport Area. One of its objectives is to generate user confidence in order to overcome and push back limits. The TRAM Barcelona Open is one of the company’s most important Corporate Social Responsibility projects and is framed within its annual CSR Plan as an initiative that promotes equality, inclusion and the will to succeed.

More information:

www.barcelona-open.com

www.cruyff-foundation.org

www.tram.cat

Press contacts:

Anna Viñals - avinyals@tram.cat - 629 575 150

Albert Sala – a.sala@fundacioncruyff.com – 616 680 889

TRAM has announced the tenth edition of La TRAMa – its annual online competition for the creation of collective stories in Catalan. TRAM users can register and pen their own parts of a collective narrative that will be started off and guided by the well-known writers Maria Climent, Alejandro Palomas, Jordi Puntí, Sílvia Soler and Regina Rodríguez Sirvent.

La TRAMa is looking for 150 literature lovers and tram users over the age of 18 who would like to help create a collective story. Registration opens on Monday 15 April on the TRAM blog – https://bloc.tram.cat. The competition will take place during the month of May, and to take part, all you have to do is choose one of the stories and be available to participate online.

From the initial paragraphs of the five professional writers, 15 different stories will be created, with the only requirement being that the story must be set (either directly or indirectly) on the tram. Each story will be written by a team of ten people, including the professional writer. The main challenge is to achieve a cohesive story out of the contributions from the whole team, so that a qualified jury (to be named at a later date) can choose a winner out of the 15 texts. Participation in the next La TRAMa 2024 literary competition is free of charge and is limited to 150 places.

Prizes for all participants

The ten co-authors of the winning story will have:

• a free three-month subscription to the newspaper ARA,
• a €100 voucher to spend in the bookshop Finestres,
• a two-hour group writing workshop and a two-hour individual workshop at Escriptura Natural,
• and three two-person tickets for the 2024/25 season at the Teatre Nacional de Catalunya.

Furthermore, all the registered participants in the competition who write at least one valid fragment of text will receive:

• a free three-month subscription to the newspaper ARA,
• and a two-hour writing workshop at Escriptura Natural.

The La TRAMa 2024 competition is being organised and managed by Quatre Ratlles, a company specialising in virtual collective stories, which is also responsible for the running the platform on which the stories will be created

Changes will be made to the service on tram lines T4, T5 and T6 from next Thursday 7 March until Sunday 10 March. The works for the installation of the catenary-free system on the tracks and the commissioning of the Glòries electrical substation, part of phase 1 of the actions to connect the tram lines along Avinguda Diagonal, require alterations to the route of the Trambesòs lines at Plaça de les Glòries. In order to minimise the impact on users, the works have been scheduled for continuous 24-hour-a-day implementation over three consecutive days.

The initial work will make it necessary to terminate the service on lines T4 and T5 at 10 p.m. on Thursday 7 March. As usual, the service on line T6 will also end at 10 p.m. On 8 March, the service will resume at the usual time of 5 a.m.

The two most important changes will affect the service from 8 to 10 March:

The T4 Glòries stop will be moved from its current location in front of Els Encants to be placed provisionally in its future location, on the south side of the square, by Disseny HUB Barcelona. In this area of the square, the trams on line T4 will run in both directions on a single track (the track closest to the coast), which could alter the frequencies of the trams.

While it is in its provisional location, there will be no passenger information or operational ticket vending machines at the stop, and users will have to enter and exit through the platform on the side closest to the coast.

To facilitate these works, the service on lines T5 and T6 will terminate at La Farinera, with no service on the last section (La Farinera - Glòries).

Finally, on Sunday 10 March, line T4 will be closed from approximately 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. due to the Barcelona Marathon. It is recommended to use lines T5 and T6 for trips between Besòs and Glòries, or Metro line 4, which has stations in Ciutadella|Vila Olímpica, Besòs, Selva de Mar and El Maresme|Fòrum.

Information for users

Over the days of changes to the service, TRAM will place personnel in the affected area (La Farinera and Glòries) to provide information to users and ensure the flow of pedestrian traffic.

As of this Tuesday, the changes will be notified via the loudspeakers and leaflets on the trams, as well as signs and instructions at the stops.

The Metroplitan Transport Authority, Barcelona City Council and TRAM will also provide information through their websites and social media channels.

Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat de Catalunya (FGC), TUSGSAL, Dbus, Emtusa, Alsa, TRAM, Sagalés and Vectalia have signed a partnership agreement to facilitate the inter-company mobility of female workers of any of these eight public transport operators who are victims of gender-based violence.

The aim of the agreement is to offer alternative employment to female workers who are victims of gender-based violence, helping them to move away from their aggressor through safe access to other social protection measures. In this way, if any of the partner companies finds that it has a female employee who is considered to be a victim of gender-based violence, she will be able to contact the rest of the signatories to the agreement and receive proposals for alternative job positions.

The possibility of offering alternative employment, as included in this agreement, is based on the mandate and special protection granted by Organic Law 1/2004 on comprehensive protection measures against gender-based violence for female workers. The Law expressly contemplates the right of female workers who are victims of gender-based violence to relocate, as well as the right to unemployment if they need to terminate their current contract. Already in 2018, the Sectoral Public Administration Conference reached an agreement on the protection of female public workers for mobility and special measures between the different state administrations.

The eight Spanish transport operators undertake to offer a position of employment as similar as possible to the position that the worker wishes to leave, and to proceed to incorporate her into the new company, although the worker’s original position will also be held for her should she wish to return. The agreement includes the creation of a working group or committee made up of one representative from each of the operators that will assess all the requests received, looking at the professional profile of the worker and the possible job positions that could be offered.

This partnership agreement was signed as a result of the initiative put forward and promoted by representatives of the member companies within the framework of the Mobility and Gender Committee of the ATUC (Spanish Urban and Metropolitan Public Transport Association). The signing ceremony, which took place at the FGC offices in Sarrià, was attended by the president of Ferrocarrils, Toni Segarra i Barreto, the director of the Administrative Management and People Area of DIREXIS TUSGSAL, Francisco Rodríguez Cazorla, the managing director of Dbus, Igor González Aranburu, the managing director of EMTUSA, Juan José Piniella Aranda, the director of Service Improvement of Alsa, Paula Bouzada Outeda, the managing director of TRAM Operadora, Xavier León Benítez, the CEO of Sagalés, Ramón Sagalés Orteu, and the Director of Organization and People of Vectalia, Marc Mascareñas Sarda.

Xavier León Benítez noted that “For TRAM, this agreement is very important because it is framed within our existing initiatives carried out to tackle gender violence, and we believe it is a good tool to help victims. Furthermore, it is important to highlight that the different operators have a united front on this issue.”

The event was also attended by the Secretary General of the ATUC, Jesús Herrero, the Chair of the ATUC Mobility and Gender Committee, María José Ajuriaguerra Uribe, and representatives of the companies that have formed the committee.

TRAM has signed an agreement with Club Juventud Badalona, the city’s historic basketball club, in order to visibilise the tram as an
accessible mode of public transport close to the Pavelló Olímpic among the club’s supporters and visitors. In fact, TRAM line T5, which ends at the Gorg stop, is just 400 metres from the arena and connects it with Plaça de les Glòries in Barcelona, as well as
passing through Sant Adrià de Besòs.

The annual agreement includes the use by TRAM of three of the arena’s advertising boards and presence on the club’s digital channels. The standard boards will display the TRAM logo, while the LED screen will show useful information for fans coming to the matches by tram. In addition, in return for TRAM’s sponsorship, the company’s employees will have the chance to watch some home matches, with 4 season tickets per season to be raffled internally.

TRAM is working on these marketing agreements to bring the brand to upcoming events in the tram’s area of influence, to raise awareness of this sustainable transport option and to consolidate its use on both work days and weekends.

The Club is working to promote sustainable transport to ensure that its supporters choose the best possible way to reach the arena. The agreement also includes an increase in the frequency of the trams on the busiest days of the season.

On Sunday 11 February the service on TRAM line T4 will be modified to accomodate the Barcelona Half Marathon, specifically along Avinguda Meridiana and Avinguda Diagonal.

Between 7:45 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. there will be no service between any stops on line T4. Between 12:30 p.m. and 1 p.m. the service is scheduled to resume between the Estació de Sant Adrià and Glòries stops. From 1 p.m. onwards the service is expected to resume on the entire T4 line, once all the runners have crossed the finishing line.

During the interruption the service on line T6 will be stepped up, while the rest of the tram network lines will operate as usual.
TRAM reminds users that these timetables are approximate and will depend on the progress of the Barcelona Half Marathon and the instructions received from the race organisers.