Green Rail Pass must be ‘booked’ up to 24-hours ahead
In Portugal a €20 monthly rail pass is available for the first time from today for residents of the country, for use on state-owned rail operator CP’s long-distance Intercidades trains (in second class), Regional, InterRegional (in second class), Coimbra Urban and Lisbon and Porto Urban services outside the metropolitan area.
To use the new ‘Green Rail Pass’, a traveller must make a seat reservation up to 24 hours in advance, at CP ticket offices or vending machines in Lisbon. They are allowed to reserve a seat on the Intercidades, free of charge, for a maximum of two different journeys per day.
However, the pass is not valid on the Alfa Pendular and Internacional Celta services, nor in first class on Intercidades and InterRegional services.
The new pass allows the use of all suburban services into and out of Coimbra, but in Lisbon and Porto only trains outside their respective metropolitan areas.
The pass costs €20 for 30 consecutive days of use, rather than a calendar month, but may also be purchased for 60 and 90 days, for €40 and €60 euros respectively, in all cases loaded onto a CP Card that, according to the rail operators’s website, costs €6 (or €3 for students).
CP is to receive €18.9 million a year, via a new public service contract with the state, for the loss of revenue that is foreseen in this new service.
Currently, a regular one-way ticket on the Intercidades service from Lisbon to Porto in second class costs €26.85, which alone is less than the value of the pass for 30 days.
According to the government, an estimated 29.9 million trips are expected to be made using these passes.
Critics have wondered at whether CP will actually have the trains available for likely demand. This will only come clear over the next few weeks.
Source: LUSA
