Navegante Empresas is an online platform through which companies and other entities can manage and pay for public transport passes for their employees (and their families), dealing with a single monthly invoice and obtaining tax benefits.
A Lisbon Metropolitan Transports (TML) launched the Navegante Companies, a long-awaited digital platform that will allow any company to offer public transport passes to its employees and their familiesThis means managing a single monthly invoice and obtaining tax benefits in terms of corporate income tax.
"To reduce emissions and make a modal transition, we need to bring companies, their workers and families onto public transport"said Rui Lopo, director of TML, at the Navegante Empresas launch event, which took place on Tuesday, October 10, at FIL. For Lopo, Navegante Empresas is "something concrete" in the sustainability targets, to which the companies have also committed themselves. "We have to help the world, Europe, the country, the metropolitan area to achieve a set of goals. Navegante wants to be part of that process"said the administrator of the metropolitan mobility and transport company.
Through an online platform, companies will be able to manage the Navegante passes of all their employees and family members. Instead of the passes being pre-paid by each employee, who then presents proof of the expense to the employer, the employer now manages the public transport passes of its entire workforce in a single digital account, with a single bill to pay at the end of the month.
"With Navegante Empresas, we want companies to offer the pass to workers and their families. They have a company account, a 30-day invoice, without bureaucracy, without having to manage worker after worker. It's a single bill so that all the workers in a company have the pass"explained Rui Lopo. With Navegante Empresas, companies pay for a pass every 30 days for their employees and they don't have to worry about monthly top-ups (and queues). The product is valid for different types of organization, not just companies; also for associations and cooperativesfor example.
Tax benefits and online membership
Entities that join Navegante Empresas may, for corporate income tax purposes, deduct from the taxable profit of 150% the expenses incurred with the purchase of passes for their employees and family membersaccording to the law no. 24-D/2022. TML promises member organizations a dedicated manager with direct and specialized support, who can, almost as a consultancy, help promote the use of public transport and reflect on their current parking and car-use incentives. "We want to work in partnership with companies, not only with Navegante Empresas as a first step, but also in an almost consultative process"Lopo explained. "We don't want them to just sign up to the pass. We want them to join and actually get their workers to use public transport."
Jorge Delgado, Secretary of State for Urban Mobility, said that the Navegante Empresas "it's another step towards solving a problem we've already identified, which is the irrational way in which we all move", referring to the excessive use of the car in everyday travel and the need to balance the modal balance by significantly increasing the share of public transport. "Change doesn't come by decree, but by showing people that the alternative is better than what we have"he said, adding that this is what both the government and, in this case, TML are doing. For Delgado, Navegante Empresas is precisely "a solution to make it easier to convince agents of change in companies".
You can join Navegante Empresas using the form available on the website behaviorsustentavel.co.ukIt is designed to act as a digital showcase for the product. Interested companies will then be contacted by TML. Navegante Empresas is also available to other organizations, such as associations and cooperatives. The following e-mail address is also available empresasnavegante@comportamentosustentavel.pt.
