Until now, students and people over 65 had to go to an in-person service point to recharge their free pass every month. Now they can do it easily at any ATM.
Students up to the age of 23 and people over 65 no longer need to queue every month at Carris or Metro service points, for exampleto have access to the free pass. As of this Monday, October 31, you can recharge your free pass at the ATMAs with the non-free passes.
Although the pass is free, loading it onto the Navegante card is an indispensable step every month. Thus, all students up to the age of 23 and all those over 65 must, at the end or beginning of each month, reload the pass on their Navegante card, just as they would with a normal paid pass. The difference is that, in this process, they pay nothing - that is, more than a recharge, it is a monthly activation.
According to the municipality, this monthly activation of the free pass allows Lisbon City Hall to know how many people benefited from the measure each monthThe municipality has to pay Transportes Metropolitanos de Lisboa (TML) - the company that manages all metropolitan-level ticketing - the exact amount that people would pay for the pass. Simply put, if in a given month there are 10 people using the free pass that would normally cost 30 euros, then the municipality knows that it owes 300 euros to TML for that period of time.
However, according to TML, a Lisbon City Hall only pays if the pass is actually usedthat is, if the beneficiaries travel on the transport passing the card at the entrance. In a hearing with municipal deputies last week, TML president Faustino Gomes explained that Lisbon City Hall pays the difference between the support that is already given by the State for the use of public transportation by students and the elderly, and the number of validations on the transports that are made by passengers, up to a total estimated amount of 14.9 million euros - the municipal budget for the measure.
In other words, a person who activates the free pass one month but does not use it later that month will not be counted when it comes time for the municipality to pay TML.
58,000 free passes
According to TML, by the end of October, there were 58 thousand free passes granted to students up to 23 years old and to people over 65 years old; about a quarter (26%) of these adherents requested a new Navegante card It is not possible to tell if they were already frequent users of public transport before the measure.
Most of the beneficiaries are people over 65 years old, with about 37,000 adhesionsThere are about 11 thousand students under the age of 18 with a free pass, and about 10 thousand under the age of 23. The initial forecasts of the municipality pointed to 71 thousand potential beneficiaries: 17 thousand students under 18, 12 thousand students under 23, and 42 thousand over 65.
"As of Monday, October 31, Lisboners eligible for the free pass (...) will be able to recharge the title at the ATM, thus avoiding any trips to the operators' customer service centers".explains the Lisbon City Hall in a press release. "The availability of these new charging services with Navegante subscription (...) are part of the promotion of an increasingly efficient mobility, both in ecological, economic and social terms."
The free pass measure covers all people aged 65 and over who are tax residents in Lisbon, as well as all students aged between 13 and 23 who are also tax residents in the city, with a few exceptions: students over 18 who have not yet finished high school, and some students in vocational education. The measure also excludes students who do not have a fiscal residence in Lisbon, or even if they do, but study in university centers outside the city, such as those of the Universidade Nova, in Costa da Caparica (Almada) or in Carcavelos (Cascais).
There are free passes without ATM activation
The possibility of recharging free passes at the ATM puts an end to unnecessary bureaucracy and makes it easier to use public transportation, but there are other passes that need to be activated every month at in-person service points.
This is the case with the pass Navigator Former CombatantThis pass is meant for all military personnel who served the country and the Armed Forces in war and peace support missions. This pass gives access to all public transportation in a municipality of your choice and can benefit not only former combatants but also their widows and widowers. The recharging of this pass - although free of charge for its beneficiaries - cannot be done at an ATM machine, requiring a monthly visit to a Carris or Metro counter, for example.
Also the monthly pass that gives access to the network BiciParksThe BiciParks network, which is integrated in the "Navegante" card, requires a reactivation that can only be made in person at the EMEL parking lots. The BiciParks network provides safe places to park bicycles, and is a free service for those who do not have a car (parking permit or license in an EMEL parking lot) and costs 7 euros/month for those who do have a car (permit or license). But, free or not, it requires a monthly recharge that cannot be done at an ATM, making it difficult to use this network.
It should be noted that currently any Navegante Municipal (30 euros/month) or Metro (40 euros/month) pass can be recharged at the ATM Multibanco, without the need to go to an in-person service station or to a machine in the metro. The Multibanco network, managed by SIBS, in fact facilitates the use of mobility services in the city, and the introduction of new recharging/validation options in this system may improve the daily life of many users of public transportation and beyond, as well as cycling and other modes.
