A Decade of Public-Transport Reform Has Won Portugal More Riders but Worse Journeys, a Lisbon Conference Hears

A decade of reform has filled Portugal's buses, trams and trains with record numbers of passengers — and left many of those passengers with a worse journey than they had before. That was the uncomfortable verdict at a Lisbon conference on 24 June 2026, Transporte Público: Uma Década Depois — O Que Mudou? ("Public Transport: A Decade Later — What Has Changed?"), where transport economists picked apart a system that is busier than ever yet struggling to convert that demand into a genuine shift away from the private car.

Record demand, especially around Lisbon

The headline numbers are striking. Carris Metropolitana, the bus operator serving the Lisbon metropolitan area, carried around 7.2% more passengers between January and May 2026 than a year earlier, on the back of successive demand records. March alone saw roughly 18.6 million passengers, up 15.4% year-on-year, and May logged 18.5 million, up 4.7%. Between March and May the operator broke ten passenger records, beating its weekday peak six times. In 2025 it carried a record 194 million passengers in total.

And yet, the specialists argued, more trips have not meant better mobility. "We continue to have growing congestion in our cities, we continue to be unable to achieve modal shift," said Rosário Macário of Instituto Superior Técnico (IST). Private cars still account for roughly 64% of trips in Lisbon and about 70% in Porto — figures that have barely budged despite years of investment and fare cuts.

The quality paradox

The paradox at the heart of the conference is that the very policies that pulled in passengers may have degraded the experience for those who depend on public transport. "When it had fewer passengers, it was a better option for those who used it than it is today," said Álvaro Costa of the University of Porto, describing crowded vehicles, no seats, and stops that are hard to leave. Cheap or free fares, the experts suggested, attracted casual users who would not otherwise have switched, swelling crowds without taking cars off the road — while making conditions worse for the transit-dependent.

Part of the problem, argued José Manuel Viegas, also of IST, is how operators are held to account. "Carris has only one performance criterion in the contract, which is what percentage of services it runs each month," he noted — a threshold set at 85% of scheduled services. Measuring whether buses simply turn up, rather than whether the journey is fast, reliable and comfortable, lets quality slide unnoticed. "Doing more of the same may reduce the speed at which it loses market share," Viegas warned — faint praise for a status quo that is not winning drivers over.

The regulator wants the rulebook rewritten

The timing is pointed, because the Autoridade da Mobilidade e dos Transportes (AMT, the Mobility and Transport Authority) is pushing for the next generation of public-service contracts to be built on different foundations. In recommendations issued earlier in June, AMT president Ana Paula Vitorino argued that "uncertainty is now part of the normal operating context, so contracts must be more adaptable and flexible."

The regulator's prescription includes energy-indexation formulas and periodic automatic reviews of cost components, so that contracts absorb shocks from inflation, energy spikes and shifting travel patterns without breaking down. It sets four priorities for what it calls the next-generation contracts: data governance; quality and a focus on the user; sustainability and territory; and institutional capacity-building. Crucially, AMT argues that citizens "do not evaluate contracts, they evaluate services" — a direct echo of the conference's quality complaint.

The decarbonisation gap is just as stark. Of roughly 7,400 vehicles under contract nationally, only about 1,254 are clean vehicles — around 17%, with 70% of those concentrated in the metropolitan areas. Reaching a 35% clean fleet would require some 1,342 replacements; hitting 50% would take about 2,528. Today, service-provision contracts make up 57% of the picture and concession models 29%.

What this means for expats

• Peak-hour crowding is the new normal — plan around it. Record ridership means the busiest services around Lisbon are genuinely full. If your schedule is flexible, travelling slightly off-peak buys you a far more comfortable trip.
• The fare deal is still excellent value. Whatever the quality grumbles, monthly passes remain among the cheapest in Western Europe. If you commute, the Passe Navegante covers buses, metro, trains and ferries across the Lisbon region for a flat monthly fee.
• Service hours may change. Operators are actively reviewing timetables — Metro de Lisboa is studying earlier openings and later closings with CP and Transtejo — so check before relying on early or late runs.
• Outside the big cities, the car still rules. With private vehicles still dominating trips, coverage and frequency thin out quickly beyond Lisbon and Porto. Factor that into where you choose to live if you want to go car-free.
• Expect contract and fare debates to continue. Brussels has already branded Portugal's public-transport offer insufficient, and the AMT's push to rewrite contracts means service standards — and how they are funded — will stay on the agenda.

The decade-on stocktake leaves Portugal with a genuine success it is struggling to bank: it has persuaded more people than ever to board, but not enough of them to leave the car at home, and not on a system that consistently rewards them for it. Whether the next contracts — rebuilt, as the AMT wants, around the quality riders actually feel — can close that gap is the question the next ten years will answer.