The Portuguese Under-Secretary of State for Infrastructure said, last Monday, that the number of estimated passengers for the Lisbon-Porto high-speed train is 10 times bigger than the number for the Lisbon-Madrid.
According to the data from the inquiry concerning the high-speed train connections, the number of expected passengers for the Lisbon-Porto connection is 10 times bigger than the number that is expected for any of the proposed international connections (Lisbon-Madrid; Porto-Vigo; Porto-Madrid).
The Under-Secretary’s statement came as a response to the questions posed by the public about the Lisbon-Madrid connection. The Mayor of Lisbon publicly stated that, in his opinion, it seemed a bit odd that the Lisbon-Madrid connection would not be the first to be built.
The Under-Secretary argued that given the results of the inquiry that was made to the population, the Lisbon-Madrid connection will not be a priority for now. The Lisbon-Porto connection expects around 10 to 12 million passengers per year. Contrarily, Lisbon-Madrid expects only 1 to 1.5 million.
The project is about to start, and naturally, given these estimations, the priority will be building the Lisbon-Porto connection first.
The Under-Secretary also stated that it is obvious that international connections are important. However, one thing at a time.
After all the plans are completed, the Lisbon-Porto high-speed train is set to connect the cities in around 1h15 minutes, hopefully around the year 2030.
