The Government has created an incentive system aimed at the purchase of electric or hydrogen buses for public collective transport in Alentejo Litoral, with a maximum funding of 4.5 million euros per beneficiary and per operation.
According to the decree published today in the Official Journal, the Government adopted the regulation through a ministerial order from the Minister of Economy and Territorial Cohesion, which creates the System of Incentives for Sustainable Local Mobility in Alentejo Litoral.
The system, financed by the Just Transition Fund, through the Alentejo 2030 Regional Program, also covers “the installation of the respective electric charging infrastructures” or “hydrogen refueling facilities.”
The document states that the regulation comes into force on Tuesday.
Also according to the ministerial order, the system seeks to “support sustainable local mobility” with the “acquisition of zero-emission buses to ensure exclusively public passenger transport services” in this territory.
It also aims at “strengthening the supply and quality of the service provided” and at the “decarbonization and support for the energy transition of the transport sector toward emission-free means and the increase in the incorporation of renewable energies.”
The regulation provides that, in addition to the municipalities and the Intermunicipal Community (CIM) of Alentejo Litoral, the grants may benefit operators that provide municipal or intermunicipal public passenger transport services in this territory.
The funding has a maximum allocation of 4.5 million euros per beneficiary and per operation” and “the maximum co-financing rate for approved operations is 100%,” applying to the eligible expenditures, reads the document.
Eligible are the additional investment costs associated with the acquisition of zero-emission buses, calculated by comparison with new equivalent buses that meet the Euro VI standard.
It is also established that the eligible costs for building, installing, modernising or expanding charging or fueling infrastructures are conditioned on the purchase of clean buses and limited to 20% of the operation’s total eligible expenditure.
The new buses must meet the legal requirements for “facilitated access to people with reduced mobility” and be used exclusively in the public transport services covered by the support.
The awarding of the incentives will now depend on the opening of calls for proposals by Alentejo 2030 and on the approval of the submitted applications.
