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The bus system in Barcelona is half-assed and poorly designed, but for other reasons than the ones you'd expect.
>no logical pattern whatsoever.
The layout dates back up to a century to the former tram system, and it has just been ever expanded and adjusted. It's centered mostly around the lower parts of the city because the workplaces used to be around the port. Nowadays there's mostly just tourists there.
Recently there was a partial redesign of existing lines into a (sorta) grid pattern, but the "new" lines don't offer higher level of service than previous trunk lines, and their naming can be confusing if unfamiliar: Horizontal lines have an H and an even number, vertical lines a V and an odd number.
>Lines follow impractical routes
There was never a full redesign of the system, so as automobile traffic was promoted in the past bus lines were forced to fit onto a road network conceived for car flow, not convenient public transit. So most lines take seemingly absurd turns and curves, and often have either direction of the line on distant streets.
>Low priority in an evnironment of very dense traffic
There's bus lanes on most trunk lines, but they're ineffective. They're very narrow, which slows buses down even when they can overtake traffic, and the lane can often be blocked by a large vehicle (since regular lanes are also narrow). There's no physical separation for the bus lanes, and vehicles will often invade the bus lane and even stop there. Right turns are made from the bus lane, too. Taxis are allowed to use the bus lane, and will sometimes stop for passengers. In the city centre, bus lanes are so saturated with buses (again, bad layout) and taxis that buses end up not being any faster than traffic. To top it all off, since most streets in the center are one-way, they have green waves; a bus making a stop will lose this wave, and always get a red light when taking off from the stop.
The average speed during rush hour is 12,5 km/h (13,5 off peak).
