Vehicle traffic on Formentera's roads network

Carretera-reduxThe Formentera Council's Office of Mobility reports that last year from August 3 to 15, the period of the year the island's network of roads experiences its heaviest use, crews gathered figures on how pedestrians, motorists and taxi drivers as well as bicycle, scooter and bus riders use roads to get a clearer picture of mobility on the island.

In an attempt to identify trends, surveyors crunched data against those produced by a similar tally from 2009. They found that nearly across the board, roads are used significantly more than before.

In terms of average daily use, or IMD for an abbreviated term used in Catalan, the only portion of the network where travellers took to the roads less frequently was between es Pujols and ses Illetes. Surveyors noted a 4% drop on that road. Elsewhere, however, upticks ranged from 2 to 26%. The most modest shifts in use (5, 2, -4 and 7%) occurred between la Savina, es Pujols and Sant Ferran, while the highway to Cala Saona saw the steepest hike in congestion, or 26%.

Highway PM-820, which cuts a line across the island from la Savina to la Mola, experienced significant surges (up to 23%) during peak periods of the day, even surpassing theoretical capacity limits set for the stretch from la Savina to es Caló de Sant Agustí. Increases of 14 and 19% were logged on the road between Sant Francesc and the crossing at es Cap de Barbaria's hallmark restaurant. A 10% upturn took place near the Maryland resort between es Caló and la Mola.

From 2016 to 2017, Formentera's population rose by 8% and vehicles (a third of them scooters) multiplied too, increasing 3.5%. Roughly eight thousand scooters and two thousand cars on the island's rental car fleets must be taken into account as well. On average there are 675 vehicles for every thousand residents, nearly 200 more than the national average, or 479:1000.