The region with the best road and rail accessibility rate in Portugal is the Metropolitan Area of Porto (Área Metropolitana do Porto-AMP). This is one of the main conclusions of a study by the Francisco Manuel dos Santos Foundation.


The study "Transport systems in Portugal: analysis of efficiency and regional impact", by the Francisco Manuel dos Santos Foundation, concludes that it is in the metropolitan area of Porto that there is a better accessibility supply, justified by the greater population density.


The research coordinated by Carlos Oliveira Cruz, professor at Instituto Superior Técnico, also verifies that "the entry of private investors into transport companies in Portugal in recent years has brought greater efficiency to this sector".


The article does not dissociate the improvement of accessibility in Porto and in the metropolitan ring to the six lines of Metro do Porto, currently with 67 kilometres and serving seven municipalities. According to the disclosed information, this means of transport "has been winning over users of all ages and social segments, helping to remove daily more than 15 thousand cars from the city centre in the capital’s district, shortening distances and attracting multinational companies to the region".


Comfort, reliability, and prices are a plus which users recognise and that give strength to the expansion plan of the public transport company. The construction of the Pink Line has already begun and there are plans for a new connection to relieve the bottleneck at Arrábida Bridge. In addition to the metrobus planned between Praça do Império and Boavista.


For the President of Conselho Metropolitano do Porto, Eduardo Vítor Rodrigues, these results are not exactly a surprise. Quoted by the newspaper Expresso, Eduardo Vítor Rodrigues who is also the Mayor of Gaia says, however, that having the best road and rail accessibility rates in the country should be a motto to do more and better. "There is still a lot to do to reach the level of the Nordic countries," he stresses. He refers in particular to the Porto-Gaia connection, "with a major daily commuting", which has also a very high average crossing time of around 50 minutes. "There are 50,000 people crossing the Douro every day to go to work on the other bank and another 20,000 to go to school/university," said the mayor, based on data from INE - Instituto Nacional de Estatística (Statistics Portugal).


For this reason, he substantiates, more road and rail works are needed, in addition to the expansion of the metro, a new bridge and the metrobus, and we must not forget the issue of intermodality (he mentioned that, on the Porto side, the construction work is underway on the Campanhã Intermodal Terminal).


The study promoted by the Francisco Manuel dos Santos Foundation also points out that, from the point of view of geographic road accessibility, "all the regions have seen absolute improvements between 1986 and 2019, as a reflection of the generalised investment in the road network”.

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    Last updated 2022-12-06