It is now possible to buy a “Cartão Navegante” on the Lisbon Metro website, without leaving home, and pick it up at a station of your choice the next day.
In the near future you won’t need a physical Navegante card to charge your pass or to occasionally use public transport in the Lisbon metropolitan area. And on the Navegante’s portal (the substitute for Portal VIVA) it will be possible to manage our digital passenger account. But while this long awaited dematerialization of the ticketing doesn’t happen, Metro de Lisboa offers a way to buy the Navegante card without leaving home.
Through Metro’s website, it is now possible to request a “Cartão Navegante” (“the tough ones”) so you can use any of the public transports in the whole Lisbon metropolitan area (amL). With this card, you can charge your monthly pass, you can charge zapping balance to, for example, pay for cheaper trips on Carris Metropolitana, and you can also use this card to access the small network of bike racks in Lisbon and Setúbal.
To buy a Cartão Navegante on the Metro website, all you need to do is go to this page and choose whether you want the card in one business day (the usual €12) or in 10 business days (it’s €6). Then download, fill out and submit a form, along with a photo of yourself (which you can do with your cell phone) and a copy of your Citizen’s Card (you can send a scan of the card with your cell phone or use the official id.gov.pt app). Finally, you have to make the payment and wait for an email indicating that your Navegante Card is ready – you will be able to pick it up at a Metro station of your choice.
According to Metro de Lisboa in a press release, this “new customer service channel is intended to contribute to the reduction of queues, as part of the objectives defined by Metropolitano de Lisboa to increase the production capacity of the “Cartão Navegante”, reducing waiting times and thus providing a faster and more efficient service. This initiative also intends to contribute to the dematerialization and digitalization of administrative processes, as well as to the reduction of paper consumption and consequent reduction of the environmental impact associated with the company’s activity”.
As an alternative to this process you can buy a Navegante Card in a few minutes at any Navegante Point machine or in person at a Navegante Space. Here you only need to take your Citizen Card (and in the case of the Navegante Points also a bank card); the Navegante Card is printed on the spot for 12 €.
