The service is the result of the first concession in Portugal to the group, whose origin is in a family transport business in Nazareth, but that nowadays is also involved in the tourism, real estate and trade sectors.

The Israeli group’s executive president, Afif Afifi, was said to be “excited” with the opportunity that he’s been given in Portugal, assuring the promise of providing “a high-quality service,” which meets mobility demands and brings more people to use public transport, with environmental gains too.

Busway will be taking up the space that at the moment is being explored in the councils of the Intermunicipal Community of Aveiro Region (CIRA) by transport companies under the Transdev group, Auto Viação da Murtosa, Auto Viação do Souto, Auto Viação Feirense and the Carvalhos Transport Union.

Aveiro municipality is the only member of the intermunicipal community which is outside of this new concession, since Aveiro council is bound by a recent concession contract with Transdev through Aveirobus.

Busway brings its collective transport into operation with a team of 125 drivers for a hundred buses, five of which are electric and half of which are brand new, Paulo Leitão, director of operations at the company, explained.

In terms of technology, a passenger counting system is the highlight, which allows to better adapt bus lines to demand, as well as a support system for use of the network, available through a phone app, which shows the live location of each bus and provides a predicted waiting time for each stop.

“Afifi won the public contest on full merit,” the president of CIRA, Ribau Esteves, stated in the project presentation.

Ribau Esteves told of the “long journey” made since CIRA took command as the regional transport authority in a reform that was considered “one of the most important on the matter of decentralisation” at the end of Passos Coelho’s term in the government.

“It was a responsibility that was thrown at us, not given,” he said, taking into consideration how nothing was prepared for the transition, which forced local governments and the CIRA to get hard to work.

“It was one of the most complex challenges placed onto the Intermunicipal Community up to today,” he claimed.

The corollary was the concession granted to Busway in a public contest over for five years, with a value of over 1.2 million euros, which consists of 107 lines serving 10 of 11 municipalities in the CIRA, covering about 400 thousand people.