A Porto-Lisbon train ticket on the high-speed line, which will connect the cities in around an hour and 15 minutes, should cost around 25 euros, down from the current price, according to Infraestruturas de Portugal (IP).
“From the assessment we’ve made, the trains are going to be bigger, they’re going to carry more passengers, they’re going to be faster, they’re going to make more journeys, and the expectation is that a ticket could cost around 25 euros on the Porto-Lisbon link, which compares with the current 40 [euros] on the Alfa [Pendular],” IP vice-president Carlos Fernandes told journalists in Porto today.
Speaking on the sidelines of the presentation of the Campanhã Urbanization Plan (PUC), which took place today at Porto City Hall, the official stressed the “reduction in time from around three hours to one hour and fifteen”, compared to the current rail service.
It is estimated that a single high-speed train carries around 500 passengers and a thousand in pairs.
Asked about the comparison with bus fares, which remain lower despite the almost doubling of time compared to the projected service on the high-speed line, Carlos Fernandes stressed that “the service will be more comfortable and faster”.
“We will certainly have many different prices. When I talk about an average of 25 euros, it means that we’ll have cheaper tickets, more expensive tickets, depending on when you buy them, a bit like buses,” he said.
He also expects that the current number of passengers on the Northern Line, around six million a year, will be maintained even with the construction of the high-speed rail line, which could add more than 10 million people to the rail axis between Lisbon and Porto, on the two lines, making a total of around 16 million.
“Today, more than 100 million people make this journey by car, more than a million by plane, and we want to bring some of these people onto the train, offering a much more competitive service,” he said.
The high-speed line should connect the country’s two main cities in around an hour and 15 minutes, with possible stops in Gaia, Aveiro, Coimbra and Leiria.
The first phase (Porto – Soure) should be ready in 2030, with the possibility of connecting to the Northern Line and immediately shortening journey times, and the second phase (Soure – Carregado) is expected to be completed in 2032, with a connection to Lisbon later, but ensured via the quadrupling of the Northern Line.
60 services are planned per day and per direction, of which 17 will be direct, nine with stops in intermediate cities (Leiria, Coimbra, Aveiro and Gaia), and 34 mixed services (with connection to the conventional network).
The project plans to transport 16 million passengers a year on the new line and the Northern Line, of which around a million currently travel by plane.
At the same time, there are plans to connect Porto to Vigo, in Galicia (Spain), with stations at Francisco Sá Carneiro airport, Braga and Valença (Viana do Castelo district).
