Once again this year, the Port Police have played a very active role in all their areas of activity.

Public safety

528 criminal proceedings were launched, marking an increase of 15%. The main cause was the uptick in proceedings involving minors, as well as thefts, although the number of individuals arrested for this was lower than in previous years: 45 arrests (-15%). All other parameters remained stable.

Traffic and road safety

The increased activity at the Port of Barcelona also led to an increase in the mobility and circulation of vehicles, which resulted in 178 traffic accidents, an accident rate nearly 40% higher than the previous year. The increase occurred in accidents resulting in material damage, while the number of minor injuries decreased by 23% and severe injuries remained stable at 6 people. The most negative aspect was that one of the accidents led to the death of the driver.

Regarding traffic offences, there was a significant increase of almost 30% in the detection of vehicles with an expired vehicle inspection certificate (419 cases). Of the 6,117 complaints from the list of Port offences, 85% were due to traffic violations. 7% correspond to cases of people accessing the port in the wrong direction as photographed by automatic systems, which fell 50% compared to 2016.

Assistance

The negative figure continues to be accidents at work: all told, there were 109 accidents (+33%), most resulting in minor injuries. Although the number of serious casualties fell significantly, sadly two people lost their lives in 2017.

706 ambulance services were managed during the year and 576 citizens received assistance. It should be noted here that two of the Port Police patrols have been equipped with DEA defibrillators.

Administrative area

For the third year in a row, it was a difficult year in the efforts to combat and prevent illegal peddling, especially following the terrorist attacks in August. Those events have naturally led to a change in the priorities and distribution of resources of the Catalan police force - Mossos d’Esquadra (PG-ME) - which has meant reducing the patrols that had been covering the port area.

Several joint operations were performed, involving the seizure of large amounts of material from up to 80 vendors in one day. A total of 929 seizures of goods took place and more than 15,000 confiscated products were destroyed, with a total weight of 3.2 tonnes.

Port area

In this area, we want to underscore the good work done in controlling accesses, making it possible to detect and withdraw 1,422 expired access badges. 208 cases of breakages were registered, including 67 corresponding to the smashing of barriers at special railway intersections. In addition, 240 internal work requests were made for anomalies observed in the public thoroughfare, and cases were detected and opened for 45 abandoned vehicles.

Among other matters, the support office managed 4,853 entry/exit registries, as well as checking and managing 4,600 staff permits and incidents.