The Government approved the second phase of the tender for the Porto-Lisbon high-speed line, between Oiã and Soure, maintaining the value of the public-private partnership and authorizing the railway signaling tender.
At a press conference in Entroncamento (Santarém district), the Minister of Infrastructure, Miguel Pinto Luz, stated that the decision, approved on Wednesday by the Council of Ministers, allows progress with the second Public-Private Partnership (PPP2), after the first tender was abandoned, without increasing the overall cost of the project.
According to the government official, “the route was optimized, with a reduction of around 11 kilometers in the initially planned extension to Soure” and technical adjustments that require the articulation of synergies between the different phases of the high-speed line.
The Council of Ministers also authorized the launch of the tender for signaling and telecommunications systems, including the implementation of the European railway control system (ERTMS) and GSM-R, which will cover not only the PPP1 and PPP2 phases, but also the Northern Line.
The Government also extended the preventive measures to safeguard railway corridors, ensuring the protection of the land necessary to carry out the work and the continuity of the project in the following phases.
Miguel Pinto Luz highlighted that the Coimbra station remains in Coimbra-B, ruling out changes to the initial project, and highlighted the existence of a broad political consensus around high speed, considered a strategic infrastructure for the coming decades.
PPP2 will be around 60 kilometers long, including viaducts, connections to the conventional network, a tunnel and interventions on the Northern Line, integrating the objective of connecting Porto and Lisbon in around one hour and 15 minutes.