With regard to the modal split of passenger transport, in Portugal there was a hegemony of passenger cars (individual transport), which are increasingly being used, achieving a share of 88.3%, in 2019, compared with 81.7% in 2000. Within the EU-28, the preference for passenger cars is similarly clear, albeit slightly less relevant (83.4% in 2019) than in Portugal, but the share of rail transport is more significant, corresponding to 8.1% in 2019, while in Portugal it was approximately 4.6%.
Regarding individual transport in Portugal, the available statistical sources do not allow the measurement of transport flows in private vehicles, so the results of the General Population Census, which provide information on the commuting movements of the working and student population (home-work or home-school trips).
According to the information obtained in the last census (2011), 61.6% of the home-work or home-school commutes involved the use of individual transport (considering both drivers and passengers), reflecting an increase of 15.9 percentage points (p.p.) compared with 2001. Walking and bus commutes were the most penalised ones, as in ten years they lost, respectively, 8.7 p.p. and 4.1 p.p., representing only 16.4% and 11.8% of the total commutes in 2011. This information can only be updated when the results of the censuses which took place in early 2021 are released.
The final results of the Survey on Mobility in the Metropolitan Areas of Lisbon and Oporto (IMob 2017) carried out by Statistics Portugal between October and December 2017 confirmed the car as the main means of transport used by residents in metropolitan areas, more markedly in the Oporto Metropolitan Area (AMP) with 67.6% of trips, than in The Lisbon Metropolitan Area (AML), with 58.9%.
The car occupancy rate was 1.56 in AMP and 1.60 in AML.
Softer modes of mobility (pedestrian or bicycle) appear as the second most important form of locomotion in the total number of journeys, with a combined weight of 18.9% in the AMP (only 0.4% using a bicycle) and 23.5% % in the AML (only 0.5% using a bicycle).
Public and/or collective transport, as the main means of transport, accounted for 11.1% of the trips in the AMP and 15.8% in the AML.