Portugal's Funiculars, Trams and Historic Lifts Move Under One Safety Regulator, a Year After the Gloria Disaster
President Seguro promulgated the decree-law on Monday. It covers metro and light metro, classic and modern trams, tourist light rail, and the lifts and funiculars that entered service before 1 January 1986. The IMT licenses the activity; the AMT takes safety certification and enforcement.
Portugal's funiculars, historic lifts, trams and metro systems are about to sit inside a single licensing and safety framework for the first time. President António José Seguro promulgated the decree-law on Monday, almost a year after the Elevador da Glória derailment in Lisbon killed 16 people and injured more than 20.
The diploma was approved in Council of Ministers on 6 August. It establishes a new legal regime for the licensing, maintenance and oversight of railway transport, and it does something the previous rulebook did not do: it names, explicitly, the vehicles that Lisbon and Porto residents ride every day and that no single regulator clearly owned.
What the regime covers
The scope runs across metropolitan and light metro systems, classic and modern trams, tourist light rail and rail transport on isolated lines, and cable transport systems. That last category is the one that matters after Glória: lifts and funiculars of historical, cultural or heritage interest that entered service before 1 January 1986.
That date is not arbitrary. It captures the Lisbon ascensores and the Porto funicular precisely because they are old, built to standards that predate the modern European railway safety architecture, and until now regulated by a patchwork that left maintenance oversight in an uncomfortable place.
Who does what
The decree splits the job between two bodies. The Instituto da Mobilidade e dos Transportes (IMT) handles licensing and access to the activity of railway transport: who may operate, and on what terms.
The Autoridade da Mobilidade e dos Transportes (AMT) takes the safety side. Under the new regime the AMT assumes maintenance and safety verification functions, including safety certification, authorisations for construction and entry into service, authorisations for rolling stock, supervision and enforcement, and the certification of personnel. In practice that means the body issuing a safety certificate for a funicular is also the body that can inspect it and act on what it finds.
The government consulted 13 entities in drawing up the text, including transport authorities, municipalities and transport operators. Its stated case for the measure is that it will contribute to increasing user confidence, promoting service quality and reliability, ensuring greater levels of accessibility, and supporting the sustainable development of urban and tourist mobility in Portugal.
The accident behind it
The Elevador da Glória left its track on 3 September 2025. Sixteen people died and more than twenty were injured, in what remains the deadliest transport accident in Lisbon in living memory. The regulatory questions it raised have driven a year of consequences: Porto suspended the Guindais funicular in July while its own certification ran its course, and the independent investigators of the GPIAAF have pushed their final report back to early 2027, with six safety recommendations already issued and accepted.
The new licensing regime does not wait for that report. It answers a structural question the accident exposed rather than the technical question of what broke, and it arrives before the investigators have finished writing.
What This Means for Expats
- Your daily commute is now regulated as railway transport. If you ride the Lisbon metro, a tram, an ascensor or the Guindais funicular, the vehicle now falls under a defined safety-certification regime with a named regulator.
- The AMT is the address for safety concerns. Certification, supervision and enforcement on these systems now sit with the transport regulator rather than being spread across operators and municipalities.
- Expect service interruptions as certification catches up. Porto's Guindais suspension is the template. Older heritage vehicles entering a formal certification process can be taken out of service while it runs.
- The Glória investigation is separate and still open. The final GPIAAF report is not due until early 2027. This decree changes who regulates; it does not answer what failed on 3 September 2025.
