Post by Andrés Palomo López

🚀 Does public transport always grow during economic crises? This was one of the key questions we aimed to answer in our Business Intelligence (BI) project at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, where we analysed mobility in Spain (1990–2025) and its relationship with the economic cycle. Together with jordi calaf rosell , Carles Serra Travé and Gerard Tristan, we built a star schema data model in Power BI, integrating more than 15 interconnected tables from sources such as Dirección General de Tráfico, ANFAC and Instituto Nacional de Estadística (INE). This allowed us to combine macroeconomic indicators (GDP and population) with car registrations and public transport users in a consistent way. 📊 Some key insights: The car market as an amplifier: During the 2008 crisis, car registrations dropped much more sharply than GDP per capita, showing how sensitive the market is to the economic cycle. Not all crises are the same: In 2008, public transport held up as an affordable alternative, but the COVID-19 shock in 2020 broke this pattern, causing a collapse in collective transport and a shift towards private cars for health and safety reasons. Structural transformation: Our dashboards reveal the decline of diesel since 2010, the rebound of gasoline, the emergence of alternative technologies and a clear trend towards smaller and more efficient engines. I am very grateful for the teamwork and for the chance to turn complex, scattered data into an organised model that can support public planning and business strategy decisions. 👇 Here is a snapshot and the link to the interactive Power BI dashboard so you can explore it yourself: https://lnkd.in/e9UXBgdu I would like to thank Professor David Palma for his continuous guidance and for challenging us to turn data into meaningful insights. #BusinessIntelligence #DataAnalytics #PowerBI #DataModeling #Mobility #UAB #DataDriven #BusinessAndTechnology