Taxi and platform transport services like Uber may continue to operate, but they should restrict access to the front seat and ensure “air renewal and surface cleaning”, it was announced today.
In an order today signed by the Minister for the Environment and Climate Action, João Pedro Matos Fernandes, to safeguard the functioning of “essential services” during the state of emergency by the Covid-19 pandemic, it is indicated that taxis and TVDE (individual transport) and paid passengers in vehicles that are not featured on an electronic platform) can continue to operate.
However, in these transport services, “access to the front seat must be restricted, and the renewal of the interior air of the vehicles and the cleaning of the surfaces must be taken care of”, points out the restrictions in the note, which comes into force at 00:00 Monday.
The Ministry of Environment and Climate Action also informs that, “to ensure the correct functioning of taxi transport services, mayors may define exceptional conditions for circulation”.
This includes movement restrictions “on even days for vehicles with“ even ”registration number” and “on odd days for vehicles with ‘odd’ registration number” ”, the guardianship states.
As for the public transport companies Soflusa, Metropolitano de Lisboa, Metro do Porto, Sociedade de Transportes Colectivos do Porto (STCP) and the concessionaire of the light meter on the south bank of the Tagus, the Government emphasizes that these entities must guarantee “the limitation of the maximum number of passengers carried to one third of the vehicle’s capacity, in order to guarantee the safety distance ”.
They must also ensure “the adequate thresholds for the provision of public passenger transport service during winter hours on all lines and routes on which they operate”, which should not be less than 30% in the metro and 40% in road transport and fluvial.
In these public transports, it will also be necessary to ensure the availability of information “that allows the safety distances between passengers to be fulfilled and the adoption of other behaviors that minimize the risk of contagion”, as well as “the rotation and segregation of the teams of workers” and “The reduction, whenever possible, of the possibilities of contact between the personnel that ensures the operation and the passengers”.
The “cleaning and disinfection of the facilities and equipment used by passengers and other users” should also be safeguarded, the dispatch said.