By Andrea Hargraves 
The four pieces of public road passenger service in the Lisbon metropolitan area (AML), which includes the purchase of 600 new, modern and less polluting buses, is the largest public contract ever recorded in the official government database (Portal Base). “Dinheiro Vivo” in its version on Saturday, July 31.
According to the survey conducted by this publication on the portal of the Institute of Public Markets, Real Estate and Construction, this inter-municipal project, which includes 18 municipalities of AML (Alcochete, Almada, Amadora, Barreiro, Cascais, Lisbon, Loures, Mafra, Moita, Montijo, Odivelas, Oeiras and Palmela, Seixal, Sesimbra, Setúbal, Sintra and Vila Franca de Xira) at the end of March of this year and worth more than 1.2 billion euros distributed over four main areas of judicial intervention.
Titled Carris Metropolitana, the new service brand, Viação Alvorada, a new company – owned by the Brazilian group Guanabara – created for this year’s contract, won the victory, resulting in the merger of Vimeca and Skotorp. The contract value is 397.2 million euros and has a duration of seven years.
Rodoviária de Lisboa, which serves the western region, has allocated 365 million euros in its share, while Transportes Sul do Tejo (TST) will receive 260 million euros, and Nex Continental Holdings – Transportes Luísa Todi e Transvia – in the Setubal peninsula, 185 million euros.
The contract was signed last March.
According to the website “Dinheiro Vivo”, the total amount signed in public contracts – concluded by the state, ministries, institutes, municipalities or urban areas – in the first half of this year, reached a new historical level: 6.8 billion euros.
In the list of the largest, highlighted by the publication itself, there is a public tender for the contract for the implementation of the circular line of the Metro do Porto (section Praça da Liberdade – Casa da Música), which was won by Ferrovial and from the construction company Alberto Couto Alves and worth about 190 million euros, and another It was awarded to the same companies, related to the construction of the Yellow Line, from Santo Ovídio to Vila D’Este, with a value of 100 million euros.