Transport companies are referring to the tax authorities to pay, as most users caught without tickets do not pay the fines spontaneously.
In the last two years, more than 160 thousand coimas Applied by the main public transport companies in Portugal were sent to the Tax Authority (AT) for coercive collection, since the overwhelming majority of violators did not pay the fines voluntarily.
In 2024 alone, 112,000 passengers were fined for infractions such as traveling without ticket, with invalid or without validation, but Only 27% paid the fine Spontaneously, advance the.
The meter of Porto leads in number of infractions, with More than 77 thousand fines issued in 2023, although the non -compliance rate fell from 83% to 71% in the last year. The operator also raised more than two million euros in fines in the two years analyzed.
However, according to two reports heard by ZAP, there are users of the Porto Metro who refused to pay the fines Due to the company’s delays in the answers. In one case, the company only responded to the defense of the user 4 months later, when the normal deadline to do so is 15 business days. In the other situation, the notification of the fine was late and the amount accumulated until double the initial cost, and the user defended.
Among the six operators covered-Metro do Porto, Lisbon Metropolitan, Carris, STCP, Urban Transportation of Coimbra and Braga-the STCP stood out for Highly High Failure Rate In 2024, with 83% of fines to pay. The company still faces technical obstacles in sending the TA offenses to the OT, due to difficulties access to the platform managed by the Institute of Mobility and Transport (IMT).
In the Lisbon Metropolitan, the failure rate remained more controlled, 55% over the two years. In 2024, of the 6700 fines issued, 2962 were paid voluntarily. Carris has been betting on technological innovation, with the introduction of contactless payments and the new carrisway application, which contributed to about 500 thousand validations in less than three months.
Meanwhile, urban transport from Braga and Coimbra face bureaucratic barbits similar to those of STCP, awaiting AT guidelines to advance with the coercive charge. In Coimbra, Only 10 fines were sent For collection in the last two years, after a technical impasse with the OT.
