If you have internet access, you would be well-advised to spend a while planning and researching longer journeys online before you set out and find yourself in a huge traffic jam. The World Wide Web is a powerful tool for motorists – you can even work out your fuel and motorway toll costs by looking at the sites suggested here.
Available in English, the Spanish Association of Motorway Franchises (www.aseta.es) for example, has an interactive map on its home page showing Spain’s toll roads and tunnels (both finished and under construction) with tolls and itineraries. This page also contains links to other toll road associations in Spain, such as ASFA (The Association of French Motorway Companies) www.autoroutes.fr, BRISA (Motorways of Portugal, www.brisa.pt) and the British IBTTA (International Bridge, Tunnel and Turnpike Association, www.ibtta.org).
Another English language resource is www.viamichelin.com, where you can plan trips between cities, work out your average fuel consumption, calculate an approximate budget for the journey including tolls and offers alternative routes. Campsa also has a multi-lingual webpage (www.campsa.es) with similar options, and offers you a three dimensional view of your trip as well as information about discounts on tolls. Both Campsa and Michelin suggest restaurants, hotels and interesting places to visit.
Spain’s traffic department has a web page (www.dgt.es), where you can monitor what is happening on motorways, at tolls and the flow of traffic in real time, a service also offered by the ministry for development at www.mfom.es/carreteras/teleruta/teleruta.html. An English version is on the way.
Spanish-speaking motorists who don’t like leaving anything to luck can also look at the Royal Automobile Club of Cataluña webside (RACC) (www.movendus.com), where they will find information about the weather, mechanical and car maintenance advice. They also post current information about fuel prices in European service stations, as well as addresses, timetables and parking fees in Barcelona and Madrid.