Developed around a castle, Abrantes is located on a hill, and its historic center is situated in some hard terrain. N2, the biggest road in Portugal, in Europe and the third in the world goes through the city, attracting a lot of visitors. Some years ago, an urbanistic intervention took place and some of the main areas of the historic center were closed to traffic so the city could be used by the people. Parking spots were created for residents and parking meters were placed to discourage people from using private vehicles. To improve mobility for pedestrians, slabs were placed over the stone. aBUSa was then created: a minibus paid by the municipality that circulates exclusively around the historic center, every day, from 9 am to 6 pm nonstop. A complete lap takes 20 minutes and a pre-bought ticket costs 0.2€ to residents, handicapped people, students, social and senior citizens while the remaining users pay 0.4€. Tickets bought on the spot cost 0.6€ to everyone.

The aBUSa was created to provide a quick, affordable, safe, comfortable, and stress-free means of transportation while freeing the historic center from big volumes of traffic, clearing the space to make it friendlier to pedestrians and the environment. The minibus used to be electric but it was replaced because it was always breaking down.This service is mostly used by students and senior citizens and the municipality is looking for a solution that increases and extends its use to as many people as possible.

There are a few problems for which Abrantes is looking for help to solve:

• ❗The bus is too big, the roads are narrow and curves are tight
• ❗How to make it more environmentally friendly?
• ❗The bus is mostly empty
• ❗How to adapt the route in order to serve better the interests of its users?
• ❗Abrantes is a city focused on the service industry, which points of interest might be relevant?
• ❗How to extend its use to tourists?
• ❗How to keep mobility smooth?

The city was developed, over the last decades, in line with the predominance of a single mode of transportation: the car. Therefore, Braga is intersected by roads which accommodate traffic of different types, namely, heavy vehicles with OD characteristics of intermunicipal, regional, national and even international scale.

The road design of these routes consists of 4 or more lanes, with a central separator, which is the result of a continuous urban option implemented since the mid-20th century, with a network designed for motorised traffic. To such end, over the last few decades an urban expansion model has been implemented based on prioritising the fluidity and speed of motorised traffic.

However, in the last few years, while stressing all our commitment to promote the inversion of the existing mobility model, a gradual inversion of the mobility “pyramid”, having the pedestrian and universal accessibility as its objective, we recognise that, in the short/medium term, we do not have the immediate resources and the phased alternatives to guarantee the implementation of this paradigmatic design in a significant way.

It should also be noted that the road policy determinations issued by the central administration and the availability of funds from the EU do not foresee the reinforcement of the established road network, or even major investments in this area, which would allow us to find alternatives in the short to medium term.

The challenge can be summarised in two points:

• ❗How can we reconcile the inevitability of the existence of crossing traffic in some places of the city, with the enjoyment of public space by pedestrians and cyclists, considering also that in the short-term the budgetary limitations and strategic definition of European financial support do not contemplate the creation of new roads.
• ❗Despite this limitation, promote integration and modal transfer, focussing on road safety and vision zero, without significantly compromising the need for fluidity of the motor traffic, still vital to the productive capacity of the city and the region.

This challenge is vital for the city and the region. Braga has a pivotal role in the regional structure, being a point of arrival, departure and passage between nearby cities and towns, integrated in a region of metropolitan dimension and characteristics.

Although there is a continuous and visible effort to reduce the number of road accidents, the Municipality of Braga aims for a vision zero. Braga is one of the European cities that subscribed to the Declaration of Cities “The New Paradigm for Safe City Streets”, in which the adoption of measures to mitigate this problem is crucial.

Furthermore, the existence of places where level crossing is not possible due to incompatibility of modes, being replaced by unlevel pedestrian crossings has legal repercussions, and impedes the city of Braga from fulfilling the aspiration of being a 100% accessible city. This is against the municipal strategy which contemplates a universal approach to mobility, inverting the mobility pyramid and trying to balance all modes of transportation in terms of the possibility of enjoying the urban space. The possibility for citizens to choose the best option at each moment is hindered by this restriction.

The goal is the implementation of a solution that allows action to be taken at various levels:

• ✔️ The driver: alerting, changing behaviours;
• ✔️ The vehicle itself: reducing speeds and making its use compatible with other modes of mobility;
• ✔️ The users of the other modes of mobility, namely the soft modes: informing, empowering and transmitting the necessary feeling of safety to vulnerable users;
• ✔️ Using vehicle-to-vehicle, vehicle-to-infrastructure and smart-infrastructure communication technologies;
• ✔️ Creation of a predictive and preventive system for accidents;
• ✔️ Allowing a more connected and Data-Driven decision making.