Alto Alentejo's Village Taxis Now Run Like Buses: Book by 15:00 the Day Before, Pay 50 Cents to 2 Euros, Miss Three and You Are Barred for a Month

The Alto Alentejo's regular bus contract does not deliver the minimum service levels the law sets, and the region's own transport authority says so in writing: the territory is too thinly populated and demand too low. Since last September it has been testing the alternative the law allows, a taxi that runs a fixed route only when someone has booked a seat, at a bus fare. On Tuesday the scheme got its permanent rulebook. Regulamento n.º 1181/2026 (Regulation 1181/2026), published in the Diário da República (the official gazette) and in force from the day of publication, sets how passengers book, what they pay and what happens to those who do not turn up. It also opens the scheme to every licensed taxi operator in the region.

The service is run by the Comunidade Intermunicipal do Alto Alentejo (CIMAA, the Alto Alentejo Intermunicipal Community), which is the transport authority for Alter do Chão, Arronches, Avis, Campo Maior, Castelo de Vide, Crato, Elvas, Fronteira, Gavião, Marvão, Monforte, Nisa, Ponte de Sor and Sousel. Portalegre runs its own municipal transport and is the exception. The on-demand brand is TAAPedido, alongside the regular Transportes do Alto Alentejo (TAA) bus network.

How a trip works

The regulation describes a service with flexible stops, routes and times, operated in licensed taxis, that only runs when a passenger has reserved it. In practice, according to CIMAA, each circuit has predefined stops and reference times, and a taxi is sent out only if someone has booked.

• Book by 15:00 on the previous working day. Call the free number 800 500 506, use a booking platform CIMAA publishes, or book in person at the câmara municipal (town hall) or junta de freguesia (parish council) of an area the service covers.
• The phone line is staffed on working days from 9:00 to 13:00 and from 14:00 to 17:00. It doubles as the customer-support line; the email address is [email protected].
• First booking: you register your tax number (NIF), municipality of residence, name, phone number, date of birth, the monthly pass number if you have one, and how you want the trip confirmed (text message, phone call or WhatsApp). After that, your NIF, the stops, the date and the time are enough.
• Book companions too. Anyone travelling with you must be registered and booked, including children up to six who travel free of charge. Children under six may only travel with a passenger aged 18 or over.
• Wait at the TAAPedido stop. Stops served by the scheme carry their own sign. The regulation lets CIMAA combine several bookings into one shared trip, up to the capacity of the vehicle.
• Last-minute passengers who turn up at a stop without a booking can be carried if there is a free seat and no detour is needed, but the driver must first phone the booking centre for permission.

What it costs

There is a single ticket, bought from the driver at the start of the trip, priced by distance:

• Up to 5 km: 0.50 euros
• 5 to 10 km: 1.00 euro
• 10 to 20 km: 1.25 euros
• 20 to 30 km: 1.50 euros
• 30 to 50 km: 1.75 euros
• More than 50 km: 2.00 euros

Anyone holding a valid monthly pass for any public transport service operating in the Alto Alentejo travels free and without limit. There is one exception: monthly passes issued by the Serviços Municipalizados de Águas e Transportes de Portalegre, the Portalegre municipal service, are not accepted for free travel. If your pass comes from an operator that CIMAA does not contract, you have to send the booking centre proof that it is valid.

The rules on children are not entirely consistent. The fare annex says children aged four or under travel free. Another article of the same regulation requires passengers to book children "up to 6 years inclusive", adding "even though they are exempt from paying". Families with a five or six year old should ask the booking line which rule applies before travelling.

Three no-shows and you are out for a month

If you book and do not appear at the stop, the booking centre will phone you with a warning. After three no-shows, you are barred from using the system for one month. Passengers are asked to tell the booking centre about anything that could cancel a trip, including delays or a change in the number of people travelling. When the pilot launched in Campo Maior, CIMAA told passengers to cancel morning trips by 17:00 on the previous working day and afternoon trips by 12:00 on the day itself. The regulation does not set its own cancellation deadline.

Passengers must carry their ticket or pass and an identity document, wear a seatbelt, not eat or smoke, and get out at the stop they booked. Luggage, shopping and pets are allowed if there is room and the driver agrees.

What the taxi operators sign up to

Much of the regulation is aimed at operators rather than passengers, and that is where CIMAA says the pilot ran into trouble. Its preamble says that many taxi operators struggle with digital platforms and public-procurement paperwork, and that during the pilot some municipalities had no taxi operator willing to run the service at all. The new system replaces contracts negotiated one by one with an open register that any licensed taxi operator in the region can join, for one year at a time, renewed automatically.

• Allocation: trips inside one municipality go to the nearest available taxi to the start or end of the route, measured from its taxi rank. Trips between municipalities combine distance with alphabetical order. An operator who does not answer the phone is treated as having refused.
• Pay: operators are paid monthly by CIMAA using the taxi tariff (the flag-fall charge plus a rate per kilometre, counting empty kilometres from the rank to the first stop), minus the fares they collect. CIMAA has 60 days to pay each invoice.
• Vehicles: at least four seats and no more than ten years old.
• Penalties: 30 euros for minor breaches, such as arriving more than ten minutes late; 50 euros for serious ones, such as refusing between half and four-fifths of trips offered; 80 euros for very serious ones, such as failing to run a trip without warning or refusing to carry an eligible passenger.
• Performance targets: at least 90 percent of scheduled trips completed, at least 90 percent without running ahead of schedule, and fewer than 20 percent refused, measured quarterly.

The regulation was sent to the Autoridade da Mobilidade e dos Transportes (AMT, the transport regulator) for its binding opinion on 9 July. The AMT did not reply within 30 days, and CIMAA treats that silence as tacit approval, as the preamble records.

A service that has started small

The first pilot began in Campo Maior on 22 September 2025, with three routes inside the municipality and two linking it to Elvas and Arronches. CIMAA's own figures for the first month were modest: 14 trips, 40 passengers and 327.9 vehicle-kilometres, with six participating drivers and every booking accepted. It reported a passenger satisfaction score of 4.9 out of 5.

By 1 June 2026, according to CIMAA, TAAPedido was running in Arronches, Campo Maior and Sousel, and it started that day in Gavião and Monforte on a six-month trial. The Gavião and Monforte launch added twelve circuits, including links from Monforte to Elvas, from Sousel through Monforte to Portalegre, from Prazeres to Estremoz and from Gavião to Abrantes. A 2024 study for CIMAA identified 64 circuits to be run this way across the region, and new stop signs have been going up since January.

The legal framework is national. The Regime Jurídico do Serviço Público de Transporte de Passageiros (the public passenger transport regime, Lei n.º 52/2015) makes intermunicipal communities the transport authorities for routes between their municipalities, and Decreto-Lei n.º 60/2016 sets the rules for flexible transport. The Incentiva+TP programme, created by Decreto-Lei n.º 21/2024, can fund the expansion of services through flexible transport. What the Alto Alentejo has now added is a single set of passenger rules and a way to recruit enough taxis to run them.

What this means for you

• If you live in the Alto Alentejo without a car, check whether your village is on a TAAPedido circuit and save 800 500 506 in your phone. A trip costs between 0.50 and 2 euros, and nothing if you hold a TAA monthly pass.
• Plan a day ahead. The 15:00 cut-off on the previous working day means a Monday trip has to be booked by Friday afternoon.
• Treat bookings seriously. Three missed pick-ups mean a month's ban, so phone to cancel if your plans change.
• If you drive a taxi in the region, joining is now a form sent to CIMAA by email or post, checked within ten working days, rather than a separate contract negotiation for each municipality.
• If you rely on other help to travel, our guide to using trains and buses with reduced mobility covers the national services. The TAAPedido regulation requires its taxi operators to guarantee access for passengers with reduced mobility.