The future of transport policies in the metropolitan areas of Lisbon and Porto

The metropolitan areas of Lisbon and Porto live presently in a situation of strong degradation of the performance of their transport systems, largely due to the growth in motorisation rates not having been accompanied both by the corresponding expansion of infra-structure and regulation measures aiming at the limitation of demand peaks. The recent motorisation of many families gives the demand for mobility in private cars an emotional load that increases the difficulty of correct framing of the policies needed for the recovery of acceptable performance conditions of the transport systems and the preservation of the urban environment. The growing possibility use of information technologies for real time management of transport systems can contribute to intensify the levels of demagogy in the political discourse, in which promises are made (without explaining how) to solve the traffic congestion problems through supply-side measures only. Based on the perception of this risk, possible trajectories for the urban transport systems are analysed in a scenario of maintenance of the current trends, and the contrast is established to what could be an alternative orientation of transport policies in these metropolitan areas making use of these information technologies.