8 January 2024-. The board of directors of the Autoritat del Transport Metropolità (ATM) of Barcelona has recently appointed Manuel Valdés as the entity's new general manager, replacing Pere Torres. 

Manuel Valdés has spent 17 years at Barcelona City Council, holding various positions related to the field of mobility and infrastructure. In 2006, he was appointed Director of Infrastructure by then mayor Joan Clos. In 2013, during the government of Xavier Trias, he served as deputy manager of Infrastructure and Urban Coordination. Under Mayor Ada Colau, he held the position of manager of Infrastructure and Mobility, functions that he carried out until the arrival of Jaume Collboni as mayor last June. From November until his appointment as head of the ATM, Valdés has worked as a strategic consultant for mobility, infrastructure and services.

Some of the most noteworthy strategic mobility projects promoted during his time on the council include the launch of the T-usual and the T-casual in 2019, coinciding with his time as a member of the board of directors of the ATM between 2018 and 2023. He has also actively participated in the promotion of the tramway connection along Diagonal, the implementation of the New Bus Network or Rondes de Barcelona Low-Emission Zone, as well as the construction and management of the Glòries tunnel and the launch of the project of Barcelona Superilles and Green Corridors.

Valdés obtained a PhD in Civil Engineering from the ETSECCPB (UPC) in 1997 and graduated from the Advanced Business Management Program (PADE) at IESE in 2010. He has combined his professional activity with teaching at the School of Civil Engineering of the UPC and is currently a professor at the School of Sustainable Mobility and at the postgraduate Facility Management course at the SERT School of the Architects’ Association of Catalonia.

The board of directors has thanked the work done by Pere Torres as the head of the ATM in some particularly complex years for public transport due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. Some of his more noteworthy tasks include the start-up and deployment of T-mobilitat throughout the Barcelona area; the tram connection along Diagonal; the promotion of the social fare policy and the commitment to environmental sustainability contained in the master plans of the ATM carried out, such as the Infrastructure Master Plan 2021-2030 and the Mobility Master Plan 2020-2025. 

Torres holds a Bachelor of Science degree from the Autonomous University of Barcelona and is an environmentalist. His professional career has been linked to the Catalan public administration in the following periods. From 1991 to 1993, he was secretary of the Interuniversity Council of Catalonia; from 1995 to 2000, he held the position of general director of Environmental Planning; from 2000 to 2003 he was Secretary of Territorial Planning; from 2013 to 2016 he was Secretary of Business and Competition in the Department of Business and Employment and since then until now he has been general director of the ATM of Barcelona.
 

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