Assessing the Impact of the 2024 Valencia Cut-off Low on Urban Mobility: Patterns, Routes, and Reconstruction Challenges

On 29 October 2024, the province of Valencia (Spain) experienced an exceptionally intense Depresión Aislada en Niveles Altos (DANA), during which up to 771 mm of rain fell in 24 hours, including a national record of 184.6 mm in a single hour, triggering catastrophic flooding that claimed 227 lives and severely damaged critical infrastructure. This study analyses the impact of the event on urban and interurban mobility in the Valencia metropolitan area, focusing on disruptions caused by road network failures and collapsed bridges. We use anonymised mobile-phone-based travel data (2022–2025) from the Spanish Ministry of Transport to construct and compare origin–destination (OD) matrices before and after the event. Complementarily, we employ an Open Source Routing Machine (OSRM) to model typical travel routes under changing infrastructure conditions. Our results show a statistically significant decline in trips involving the southern municipalities—the most affected—during the week following the flood, with gradual recovery over the subsequent five months, reflecting the pace of reconstruction. Route modelling reveals increases of 39% in average travel distance and 55% in duration due to key bridge closures. Furthermore, the analysis of reconstruction timelines exposes marked differences in response efficiency among national, regional, and provincial infrastructure authorities. These findings underscore the vulnerability of mobility systems to climate-induced disruptions and point to critical areas for improvement. We recommend that metropolitan areas prioritise the design of resilient transport infrastructure, including redundant river crossings to prevent total network collapse during floods. Additionally, integrating real-time flood alerts into public navigation systems could improve commuter response, and the establishment of unified crisis coordination bodies may help reduce delays in post-disaster recovery. By documenting the cascading effects of extreme weather events on daily travel, this research offers practical guidance for more adaptive urban planning and governance in the face of accelerating climate risks.