Metropolitano de Lisboa, EPE
| Metropolitano de Lisboa, EPE
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|---|---|
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| legal form | Entidade Pública Empresarial |
| founding | 1948 |
| Seat | Lisbon , Portugal |
| management | Joaquim Reis (Chairman of the Board of Directors; President) |
| Number of employees | 1,648 (2007) |
| Branch | traffic |
| Website | https://www.metrolisboa.pt |
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The Metropolitano de Lisboa, Entidade Pública Empresarial , often just Metropolitano de Lisboa, EPE or ML, EPE , is a state-owned company that has been responsible for the planning, construction and operation of the Lisbon subway since it was founded in 1948 . To this day, the company is one hundred percent state-owned. It is based in the Portuguese capital .
history
The first steps towards building the Lisbon Metro began in the late 1940s. With the adoption of Decreto-Lei n ° 36 620 of November 24, 1947, the city of Lisbon was entitled to found a planning and project company for the construction of an underground railway in Lisbon. This was founded in January 1948 with the name Metropolitano de Lisboa, SARL . SARL stood for the Portuguese company form Sociedade Anónima de Responsibilade Limitade , roughly comparable to a German GmbH . The city of Lisbon held a 40 percent stake and Carris held a 13.3 percent stake. The remaining shares came from various private companies that had asked for a concession to build and / or operate an underground railway in Lisbon. The capital was 4.5 million escudos . The aim of the newly founded company was the technical and economic investigation of an underground means of mass transport in Lisbon and, if necessary, its construction and operation.
In 1948 the ML developed a plan to build a metro in Lisbon, which envisaged three lines that were to be built in three stages. After the company received the concession to build and operate the new metro in 1949, construction work began in 1954 on the Sete Rios - Rotunda line and the first workshop at Palhavã . The Entre Campos - Rotunda and Rotunda - Restauradores routes followed until 1959. On December 29, 1959, the city of Lisbon celebrated the opening of the new means of transport. Until 1972 the ML opened further routes, so that by then a small ypsilon-like network with a length of 11.9 kilometers and 20 stations was created.
After the Carnation Revolution of 1974, all businesses and businesses in Portugal were nationalized without exception. In 1978 the government changed the corporate form of the Metropolitano de Lisboa from the previous "anonymous company with limited liability" ( Sociedade Anónima de Responsibilade Limitade , SARL) to a "public company" ( Empresa Pública , EP).
Due to the financial and economic crisis in Portugal, the expansion of the network stagnated in the 1970s and 1980s, the only investments concerned the extension of the platforms from 40 to 105 meters so that in the future, instead of the two-car trains, six carriages could be used. With the economic recovery at the end of the 1980s and Portugal's accession to the European Community , the situation improved considerably. In 1988, the first expansion of the network in 16 years was celebrated when the Sete Rios - Colégio Militar and Entre Campos - Cidade Universitária routes were opened . In 1990 the Metropolitano de Lisboa decided together with the Lisbon city administration with a general plan ( Plano de Expansão da Rede 1999 ) to prepare and plan the expansion of the network. The main component of the plan was, among other things, the separation of the previous Y-network into three new lines (blue, yellow and green lines) and the construction of a new line (red line).
At the same time as the expansion, the Lisbon metro network was also realigned. The board decided to have a new design concept developed, which was unique in the world at the time. In addition to the usual marking of the lines with colors (blue, yellow and green; later also red), each line received its own distinctive symbol, the blue line the seagull, the yellow line the sunflower, the green line the caravel and later the red one Compass. In addition, the stations should be more individualized and artistically designed. Since then, the operating company has been inviting almost exclusively Portuguese artists to participate in every construction and redesign of train stations. In connection with the redesign, the operating company also gave itself a new corporate design . The older Metro logo in the form of a single wine-red M was changed in favor of a modern-looking white M on a red background in the shape of a rectangle with a rounded top.
In 2003 the operating company followed the London model and switched the metro system from the previously "open" to a "closed system" with access barriers. The paper tickets were gradually converted to the system of an electronic prepaid card (similar to the London Oyster Card ) by 2008 .
In 2009, the Portuguese government changed the operating company form from the previous Empresa Pública to a so-called Entidade Pública Empresarial (comparable to an institution under public law ). As a result, it lost the previously legally required advisory board ( conselho consultivo ) and now has only one administrative board ( conselho de administração ).
The expansion of the Lisbon metro network continues to this day. At the beginning of 2009 the network had a length of 37.7 kilometers and 46 stations. In 2006, 855.5 million passengers used the trains of the Lisbon Metro. The maintenance of the underground stations alone costs the operating company six million euros a year.
literature
- JS Brazão Farinha: O primeiro escalão da rede do metropolitano de Lisboa , [The first stage of the Lisbon metro network], Metropolitano de Lisboa, November 1995, no ISBN
- JS Brazão Farinha: Caderno n ° 5 - Obras de Construção do Metropolitano de Lisboa 1955-1993 , [Issue No. 5 - Construction of the Lisbon subway between 1955 and 1993], Metropolitano de Lisboa, February 1997, no ISBN
Individual evidence
- ↑ Annual Report 2007 of the Metropolitano de Lisboa, EPE (PDF file) ( Memento of the original dated August 6, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Network data of the Lisbon Metro 1959–2009 (Portuguese) ( Memento of the original from June 24, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Alexandra Noronha: Governo transforma Metropolitano de Lisboa em EPE ( Memento of the original of April 21, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , [Government converts Metropolitano de Lisboa to EPE], Jornal de Negócios, April 23, 2009
- ↑ Passenger numbers on the Lisbon metro 1959–2006 ( Memento of the original from June 24, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Portuguese)
- ↑ Novas estações obrigam a desperdício energético , [New train stations force people to waste energy], Destak.pt, February 11, 2009
See also
Web links
- Official website of the Metropolitano de Lisboa, EPE (Portuguese, English)
- History of the Lisbon Metro on the pages of the Metropolitano de Lisboa (Portuguese)