The government wants to encourage the use of public transportation in Portugal and, to this end, is studying the creation of a single national pass and a mobility card, similar to the meal card.
The two ideas were shared during the parliamentary commission of Economy, Public Works, Planning and Housing, by the Minister of Environment and Climate Action, Duarte Cordeiro, who stressed that the measures aim to improve collective mobility.
Speaking about the mobility card, the minister explained that it will work in a similar way to the meal card and will bring benefits to companies that choose to provide it. It emerges as a solution to discourage workers from using individual transportation.
The creation of this card is still being studied, and the minister explained that it could be used not only for sustainable transport modes, but also for the purchase of bicycles and electric vehicles.
Another topic addressed by the minister was the development of an intermodal ticketing platform that will cover the entire country, provisionally called 1Bilhete.pt.
This project proposes the creation of a single transportation card at a national level that can be charged anywhere in the country. Duarte Cordeiro added that the results of this pass may start to appear as early as 2023.
In its start-up, this project will count with the collaboration of Transportes Metropolitanos de Lisboa (TML) and TIP – Transportes Intermodais do Porto , and with the supervision of the Instituto da Mobilidade e dos Transportes (IMT).