The Portuguese capital has become in recent decades a thriving city open to the world thanks to globalization and a booming Portuguese tourism and entertainment industry. Between 2022 and 2023 the Portuguese GDP grew by more than 8% and the economy of the former PIGS leads the EU in growth while its sovereign debt has the highest rating from international agencies and its unemployment rate is the lowest in southern Europe. All these indicators show how Portugal is becoming a priority destination for foreign companies, especially Spanish ones. Moreover, national companies themselves have made the leap to other international markets. Energias de Portugal (EDP) reported a net profit of 950 million euros globally in 2023, largely thanks to its Spanish and Brazilian subsidiaries. Other major Portuguese groups with an international presence include the Jerónimo Martins distribution chain, leader in the supermarket sector in Poland, and GALP, the fourth-largest hydrocarbon operator in Spain with 560 gas stations throughout the country.
Returning to Lisbon, the growth of its metropolitan area both in population (in 2023 it had 2,850,000 inhabitants and it is estimated that it will reach 4.5 million in 2050) and in per capita income (between 2024 and 2029 it grew by 15% to 32,000 euros) in the last twenty years configures a 21st century metropolis with the inevitable mobility problems of today’s world. In addition, its enormous activity – it is one of the 10 cities in the world that holds the most congresses – required a redesign of its transport network. One of the first steps was to modernize its iconic network of urban streetcars, the famous electric trams that have been part of Lisbon’s urban landscape since 1901. Although they were nearly dismantled in the 1970s thanks to the push of urban bus lines and the emergence of the Lisbon Metro, the streetcar has become an agile, transversal and, above all, environmentally sustainable means of transport. Through the public company Carris, an ambitious plan for investments, improvements and redesign of the tramway service in the Lisbon metropolitan area up to 2030 has been put forward. One of the first measures of this shock plan was the acquisition of 15 new streetcars for line 15, a tender that was won by the Guipuzcoa-based company CAF. Two new light rail lines called LIOS were also designed to extend the network by 24 kilometers to both the east and west of Lisbon. The project, with an estimated budget of 490 million euros, will be financed by the Lisbon and Oeiras City Councils, which hope to secure European Union funding for the project and technical supervision by Metro de Lisboa.
The 25 de Abril bridge connects the two banks of the Tagus by highway and train
The Lisbon subway network itself is immersed in its own task of expansion and modernization. On the one hand, construction has already begun on a new section connecting the yellow line from Rato station to the green line at the Cais do Sodré interchange. Two new stations, Estrela and Santos, will also be built on the almost 2 kilometers of the new line, the work for which has been tendered to the Spanish-Portuguese consortium formed by the Catalan company Comsa and the Portuguese company Zagope. The cost of this investment has been estimated at around 70 million euros. Another Spanish company, in this case the railway equipment manufacturer Stadler Rail Valencia, is behind another major contract with Metro de Lisboa. In partnership with Siemens Mobility, the Valencian company has already begun to deliver the 14 units of triple carriages with a capacity for 90 seated passengers that represent the first modernization of vehicles in the Portuguese subway since 2002. With a budget of more than 72 million euros, Metro management estimates that they will be in operation in the first quarter of 2025.
Plan of the Lisbon metro green and yellow line connection works
As for the urban bus service, this has also been a major challenge for a system that serves the population of Lisbon and its 17 neighboring cities as well as 33 million tourists a year. Unified under the Carris Metropolitana brand, the new network has monumental dimensions: 1,600 buses (1,400 of them electric and newly acquired thanks to European aid), 12,000 stops, 820 lines and a service of 6 million trips per year. In addition, there has been the implementation of electronic ticketing through QR codes on the smartphone with a ticket management system located in the cloud.
Another of the lines of action in recent years by local authorities has been, as in many large cities around the world, the opening and promotion of bike lanes. Lisbon’s Municipal Mobility and Parking Company (EMEL) promoted the GIRA system of shared bicycles (electric and conventional) that from €25 per year allows the inhabitants of the most urban area of Lisbon to have 1,300 bikes in the 164 stations spread throughout the city center. The system, implemented in 2017, was already responsible according to estimates in 2021 for a reduction in emissions of 300 tons of CO2 per year. A recent audit carried out by the Danish company Copenhagenize provides an overview of a system that it considers to be a worldwide benchmark and with the potential to make Lisbon one of the world’s leading cities in terms of CO2 emissions. However, the report addresses one of the main problems to be solved in the Lisbon network: the interconnection between sections, mainly between the inland urban layout and the coastal path that runs along the banks of the Tagus. With these improvements, the more than 200 kilometers of cycling paths in the Portuguese capital at present would be very close to achieving the goal of 93% of the population having a bike lane within 300 meters of their homes.
At supra-local level, the long-awaited high-speed connection between Lisbon and Madrid seems to be moving forward after decades of stagnation and the most widely assumed estimate is that it could be operational in 2035, leaving the journey between the two capitals in 3 hours when now it takes almost three times as long and two transfers must be made. The Portuguese government ‘s commitment to high-speed rail seems to be firm (first the socialist government of Antonio Costa and now the conservative government of Luis Montenegro). In addition to the line to Madrid, work is already underway on the Lisbon-Porto line to connect the two major cities of the country in 1 hour and 15 minutes, as well as the route between Vigo and Porto in just 50 minutes. Both lines could come into operation within a time horizon of 8 years and would mean a qualitative advance in the Spanish-Portuguese railway connections, which are also open to future lines through Salamanca and Faro. On the other hand, the executive has just launched a €20 per month rail pass for intercity and regional routes with which it intends to attract up to 30 million passengers per year, since the previous monthly pass was €49 per month.
Presentation of a new model of urban bus for Oporto by Alsa
The new Portuguese cabinet has also set a deadline for the construction of Lisbon’s new international airport, the Luis de Camoes, which will cost an estimated 6.1 billion euros and will take 6 years for the first runway to come into operation and 7 years for the second. Meanwhile, many Spanish companies are joining mobility projects in Portugal: Alsa has been the concessionaire of passenger transport in Porto, Ferrovial has built the last extension of the light metro line in the same city, Indra has implemented the single transport ticket in Lisbon and Repsol has just announced a new green hydrogen plant in the Industrial Complex of Sines.
Vectio is also another of the Spanish companies that, within its extensive portfolio of international clients, has worked on mobility projects in Portugal. Specifically in Lisbon, the last project that counted with the signature of Vectio was the traffic study for a major retailer in its new operations center in Oeiras. The Portuguese capital has long been, and increasingly so, a destination for foreign investment and a business opportunity for Spanish engineering firms specializing in sustainable mobility.
Links:
https://www.expansion.com/empresas/energia/2024/10/21/6716631c468aebc41c8b456f.html
https://www.trenvista.net/a-fondo/proyecto-lios-el-tranvia-vuelve-a-conquistar-lisboa/
https://newsroom.ferrovial.com/es/notas_prensa/ferrovial-inaugura-la-ampliacion-del-metro-de-oporto/
https://lisboaparapessoas.pt/es/2024/05/24/conclusiones-de-la-auditoria-de-la-red-ciclista/
https://www.disfrutalisboa.com/7-colinas-viva-viagem
https://blog.ptvgroup.com/es/ciudad-y-movilidad/lisboa-capital-verde/