Two in Three Greater Lisbon Residents Still Default to the Car, an ACP Survey Reports, Even as the €30 Navegante Pass Sits Underused
An Automóvel Club de Portugal survey finds 67% of Greater Lisbon residents prefer the car and 59% use one daily, even though the flat €30 Navegante pass has held for seven years — evidence that frequency and convenience, not price, keep the region on the road.
A survey published this weekend puts a hard number on something Greater Lisbon commuters feel every morning: the car still wins. In "Tendências Urbanas de Mobilidade 2026" (Urban Mobility Trends 2026), released on 12 July by the Observatório do Automóvel Club de Portugal (the research arm of the Automobile Club of Portugal, or ACP), 67 percent of residents name the private car as their preferred way to get around, and 59 percent say they actually use one for their daily trips. The study polled 1,850 adults across the 18 municipalities of the Área Metropolitana de Lisboa (Lisbon Metropolitan Area), home to roughly 2.9 million people.
What makes the figure striking is that it stands against nearly a decade of cheaper, simpler public transport. The flat Navegante pass has cost €30 a month for seven years, with the wider Navegante Metropolitano at €40 — less than 5 percent of the minimum wage — and yet only 17 percent of those surveyed think the fares are high. Price, in other words, is not what keeps Lisbon in its cars.
What keeps drivers behind the wheel
Convenience does. Some 34 percent said they stay with the car for lack of a convenient alternative, and 22 percent for its sheer flexibility. Tellingly, 46 percent of respondents travel less than 10 kilometres a day — distances a bus, metro or bike could in principle absorb — yet an equal share said they would only switch if services ran more often. Barely a quarter reported being satisfied with however they currently travel, a hint that car dependence here is as much resignation as preference.
Drivers are clear-eyed about the costs. Some 46 percent named excessive traffic as the metropolitan area's single biggest problem and 42 percent pointed to the shortage of parking; on the roads themselves, 48 percent flagged distracted driving and 46 percent speeding as everyday hazards. One caveat is worth keeping in mind: the ACP is a motoring club, and its observatory surveys the very drivers whose habits it exists to represent.
A tale of two cities
The numbers land just as Porto did the opposite thing entirely, making its buses and metro free to residents under a €20 million municipal scheme. Lisbon has leaned on price too — the €30 pass, plus the summer beach buses running again this month — but the ACP data suggest that frequency, reliability and door-to-door convenience, not the ticket price, are what would actually pull people out of their cars.
What this means for expats
- You are not imagining the traffic. Nearly half of metropolitan residents rate congestion as the region's worst problem — factor commute times into any decision about where you live versus where you work.
- The pass is a genuine bargain, if the network reaches you. At €30, or €40 metropolitan-wide, the Navegante is cheap by European standards; the catch is frequency and coverage outside the core, which is exactly what respondents said holds them back.
- Short trips are the easy win. With 46 percent of journeys under 10 kilometres, a bike, a scooter or a single metro line can often replace a second household car — worth testing before you buy one.
The picture the ACP paints is not one of stubbornness so much as inertia: a region that has made the bus and metro cheap but has yet to make them frequent and reliable enough to change habits at scale. Until it does, two in three residents will keep reaching for the keys.
