In 1966, Saba was the winning bidder of five underground car parks, which could be called the "first concession" in Barcelona, located in the main business district in the city centre. All together they had around 4,000 parking spaces. A short while ago, Sociedad de Aparcamientos de Barcelona, S.A. consisted of a group of entrepreneurs and financiers from the city who were connected to the banking and construction sectors, in order to build and operate underground car parks.
The creation of the company which is today called Saba coincided with the time when Barcelona City Council wanted to study and implement policies to streamline traffic in the city, taking the growth of the vehicle population and the lack of off-street parking into consideration. Parking was used as a corrective measure to address the existing growing traffic problems, becoming a measure to order and regulate traffic. At that time Barcelona had 1,745,000 inhabitants and 280,000 vehicles.
In the following decades, Saba explored opportunities beyond Barcelona, consolidating its internal structure, management and staff, and strengthening its industrial profile. Growth and internationalisation came about progressively thanks to the attributes of Saba, a benchmark in its field: innovation, excellence in customer service, environmental management and involvement with projects, among others.
Fifty years after the first concession in Barcelona, the transformation of Saba has been as extensive as the transformation of cities: Fifty years of cities' transformation translate into fifty years of continuous development for Saba, continuous commercial and technological restructuring and consolidation of a long-term project geared toward high-quality service and sustainable mobility.
Concessions, public/private partnerships and links to the local area are in the company's DNA, enabling appropriate dialogues to be set up with different cooperating actors, administrations, institutions, people, to fulfil their needs and implement and develop progressive formulas, all thanks to a committed staff.
Saba will continue on its path towards sustainability, corporate responsibility and shall be a fully engaged
participant in the progress of society and the cities it has been involved with since 1966.
