Portugal's ride-hailing shake-up is signed. Drivers now face 50 hours of training and a 30-question exam
The President signed the revision of Portugal's TVDE law on 18 August. Platforms must ensure drivers speak Portuguese, passengers can filter for it in the app, taxis are allowed onto the platforms, and in-car video recording is permitted only with both parties' consent.
The biggest rewrite of Portugal’s ride-hailing rules since the regime was created has cleared its final hurdle. On 18 August, President António José Seguro signed the parliamentary decree amending Law 45/2018, the law governing paid individual passenger transport in unmarked vehicles booked through an app. It went through on the same day as the face-covering ban, and attracted a fraction of the attention.
For anyone thinking of driving, the practical change is the way in. New TVDE drivers must complete a minimum of 50 hours of initial training, theory and practice, and pass a 30-question exam at the end of it. Twenty-seven correct answers are required. That is a 90% pass mark, not a formality.
The second change is about language. Platforms are now obliged to make sure their drivers have a command of Portuguese, and passengers can filter for that in the app before booking. It answers a complaint that surfaced mostly in Lisbon and Porto, where the sector’s rapid growth brought in a lot of drivers who had recently arrived in the country.
Taxis are allowed onto the apps
The change most likely to reshape the market is a different one. Taxis can now operate through the electronic platforms too, subject to their own requirements. For seven years the two fleets sat on opposite sides of a fight that ran through protests, blockades and litigation. From here, they can share the same app. The revision also scraps the ban on advertising on TVDE vehicles, putting them on the same footing as taxis.
The IMT enters the picture with an electronic data-sharing platform designed to tighten tax, social-security and administrative enforcement across the sector. That is the mechanism aimed at irregular operators, which is the problem the 2018 law never really solved.
Finally, video. In-car recording becomes permissible, but only optionally, with the express consent of both driver and passenger, and with audio capture prohibited. The proposal came from Chega and survived committee with those limits attached.
The text had been approved in a final global vote in Parliament in July, after clearing the infrastructure, mobility and housing committee on 8 July. What remains is publication in the Diário da República and the commencement dates — which is where we will learn when a would-be driver actually has to sit down in a classroom.
Image: Bruno Moreira / Esquerda.net via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)
