[PT] The Portuguese National Railway Pass will be upgraded

[Giugiaro]

The Portuguese government will announce today the newly revised Portuguese National Railway Pass.

The event will be held at the Portuguese National Railway Museum at Entroncamento.

The pass will be renamed to "Green Railway Pass" and its monthly subscription will be changed from the current 49€ down to 20€.

The pass will also have extended coverage. Until now the pass was only valid for Regional trains.
Now, the pass will cover both InterCidades, InterRegional, and Regional. Urbano trains will also be included, but only outside of the Lisbon and Porto Metropolitan Areas.
Alfa Pendular and Celta trains will remain excluded. The pass will not allow reservations or occupations in 1st Class InterCidades and InterRegional Arco seats.

InterCidades reservations can only be done up to 24 hours before departure, and only two InterCidades bookings can be done per day.

EDIT: The pass is only available for residents in Portugal. No mention of nationality, so anyone with a residency permit or certification from Portugal can buy and use the pass.

 

[43 302]

How on earth are they going to cope with the inevitable increase in passenger numbers.

 

[Giugiaro]

Easy. They won't.

The resolution that binds the railway company to its obligation to provide the pass has a budget mechanism that should bridge the gap between the price that passengers pay for the service, and the costs of running said service.
But nothing in it requires the railway company to increase its offer, nor does it consider anything regarding fleet reinforcement and modernization.

In other words, it's a bombshell meant to completely deteriorate the quality of the railway service while keeping the company financially viable.
It makes it easier for the right-wing government to justify the privatization of the incumbent operator.

Both the current government as well as the Liberal Initiative Party want to franchise the railways in Portugal. Lad, do we know a thing or two about that...

 

[nwales58]

If I was still in consultancy it sounds like a goldmine opportunity ahead

 

[yorksrob]

Why do they see franchising as a silver bullet ?

Presumably they must have seen the €49 scheme as successful on some level.

 

[Giugiaro]

Presumably they must have seen the €49 scheme as successful on some level.

Not at all. Since it was targeted only for Regional services the potential client base was incredibly limited, considering the limited geographical reach of this tier of service.
Regionais don't cover the whole territory and often terminate close to or at the border of the Lisbon and Porto Metropolitan Areas/Urbano networks. A lot of high-demand routes don't even have Regional coverage.

Between August and December of 2023, only 13.400 monthly subscriptions of the older National Railway Pass were sold. About 2700 subscriptions a month.
The overwhelming majority of those subscriptions were already existing clients that migrated from their traditional Regional subscription for the cheaper National Pass.

To get things into perspective, 2023 had an annual passenger count (total number of boardings, not individuals) of 173.3 million, or 14.4 million monthly passengers.
If we divide this value by 30 days, to get an idea of how many actual daily passengers the railway company has, that translates to 481.297 daily passengers. We'll assume these could all have subscriptions.
The 49€ Regional-only national pass had a 0,56% share of the market, a pitiful amount.

 

[yorksrob]

Not at all. Since it was targeted only for Regional services the potential client base was incredibly limited, considering the limited geographical reach of this tier of service.
Regionais don't cover the whole territory and often terminate close to or at the border of the Lisbon and Porto Metropolitan Areas/Urbano networks. A lot of high-demand routes don't even have Regional coverage.

Between August and December of 2023, only 13.400 monthly subscriptions of the older National Railway Pass were sold. About 2700 subscriptions a month.
The overwhelming majority of those subscriptions were already existing clients that migrated from their traditional Regional subscription for the cheaper National Pass.

To get things into perspective, 2023 had an annual passenger count (total number of boardings, not individuals) of 173.3 million, or 14.4 million monthly passengers.
If we divide this value by 30 days, to get an idea of how many actual daily passengers the railway company has, that translates to 481.297 daily passengers. We'll assume these could all have subscriptions.
The 49€ Regional-only national pass had a 0,56% share of the market, a pitiful amount.

That would be a more compelling explanation for wanting to increase the scope and make the ticket more useful (if the current version wasn't useful enough).

An interesting example for those who would leave IC services out of such a product over here.

 

[Giugiaro]

Some data was made public last Friday, with the Minister for Planning and Infrastructure, Miguel Pinto Luz, announcing that in three weeks 22 thousand passengers have purchased the new Portuguese National Green Railway Pass.

Considering the metrics I calculated in my last reply, this was an 815% increase in subscriptions or 4.6% of the potential market share achieved.

It should be a clear reminder that commuter services within the Lisbon and Porto Metropolitan Areas are not covered by this pass, which is the bulk of the market.