Portugal's 20-euro rail pass reaches Lisbon and Porto commuter trains in the third week of September
The Ministry of Infrastructure has set the third week of September for extending the Passe Ferroviário Verde to urban rail services in Lisbon and Porto, and says the Fertagus line will be included. The measure is costed at 1.5 million euros a year.
There is a date now. The Passe Ferroviário Verde will start covering urban rail services in Lisbon and Porto in the third week of September, according to a statement issued on Friday by the Ministry of Infrastructure and Housing. The statement also added something the announcement a week ago did not contain: the pass will be extended to the Fertagus line across the Tagus.
The price stays where it was. The pass costs 20 euros for 30 days and works on the whole national rail network, apart from the Alfa Pendular and first class on Intercidades services. What changes is the reach. Until now the routes already covered by Navegante in Lisbon and Andante in Porto were excluded, which meant plenty of commuters were buying two passes to make one journey.
What it saves in real money
The ministry published two worked examples, and they are worth reading, because this is exactly the sum most people never sit down to do.
Someone living in Vila Nova de Famalicão, outside the Porto metropolitan area, working in the city centre near São Bento, currently pays 60 euros a month: 40 for the Andante plus 20 for the green pass. From September they can hold the green pass alone. That is 480 euros a year staying in the household budget.
The second case runs from Monte Abraão in Sintra to Entrecampos in Lisbon. Today the choice is a 40-euro Navegante or a 32.35-euro CP season ticket. In September the 20-euro pass enters the picture, worth 240 euros a year.
The government puts the annual cost at 1.5 million euros, paid as compensation to CP and Fertagus. For anyone travelling by train alone, the saving is around half.
The bottleneck nobody has fixed
There is a catch, and it is not a small one. The Tagus crossing already runs badly overcrowded at peak times, and a cheaper pass can only pull in more passengers. In March, the Fertagus passenger association complained to the European Commission about conditions on the line. The extra carriages the operator ordered are not expected in service until the first four months of 2027, a delay both the ministry and the company blame on a Europe-wide shortage of rolling stock.
The statement also does not say when the Fertagus extension takes effect. That is left open, as is the exact September date.
This is the second transport move of the month. We covered the original announcement of the urban extension and Viseu’s decision to make its urban buses free from September. September is shaping up to be a busy month for anyone who commutes.
Image: Jcornelius / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
