Overview on transportation infrastructure research in Portugal

Abstract

The road infrastructures in Portugal have a great importance in the general transportation system, and the investments made in the last decades in the Portuguese road network resulted in road infrastructures of very good quality, classified by OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) in the best places between the OECD countries. Concomitantly, the number of road accidents in Portugal deeply decreased into values only observed a few decades ago, when the traffic volume was substantially lower, which allowed to save significant amounts of the state budget. These excellent indicators obtained in Portugal are also a consequence of the advanced state of development of the Road Industry in cooperation with the main Research Centers in this field, namely the University of Minho. However, new challenges are currently posed to the transportation infrastructure Research Centers and Industry in Portugal, due to the economic crisis in the EU (European Union) and because the Portuguese road network is almost complete, needing essentially to be maintained. In fact, the pressure to get the most out of existing networks will continue to grow in Portugal, while the Portuguese companies working in this field are pursuing new opportunities to use their experience in the construction of new roads in emerging markets, namely in Eastern Europe, Northern Africa and Arabic countries, Portuguese-speaking African and American countries (Brazil, Angola and Mozambique), among others.