Lisbon, Portugal: Boosting the city’s walkability through tech

Portugal is keen to make its public spaces more walkable and improve pedestrians’ experience – the country’s ambitious ‘National Strategy for Active Pedestrian Mobility’ aims to increase pedestrian trips by 35 per cent, expand accessible pedestrian space by 50 per cent, and reduce sedentary behaviour by 15 per cent, all by 2030.

The Portuguese capital of Lisbon has long been keen to better promote walking in urban mobility. However, gaps persisted when trying to analyse residents’ and tourists’ pedestrian experiences – so the city decided to use a data-based approach to better map Lisbon’s walkability.

“Lisbon is registering a record number of tourists, and people are coming to live here from all over the world – it’s an exciting place to be right now. However, mobility takes up a lot of the city’s space, and with that comes associated problems such as pollution, congestion and noise,” says João Bernardino, who works for Lisbon City Council as Advisor to Lisbon’s Deputy Mayor for Pedestrian Accessibility, Ângelo Pereira.

To gather more data on pedestrian experiences, Lisbon is collaborating with the Walk21 Foundation, an NGO promoting walking as a mobility solution. The Walk21 Foundation created the Walkability.App, a tool which allows Lisbon pedestrians to share their experiences and thereby inform the city of potential required interventions. This is one of five projects selected for the Sustainable Cities Mobility Challenge, a programme coordinated by EIT Climate-KIC and funded for the second year through the Charities Aid Foundation (CAF) America via a grant from FedEx.

“Since the adoption of Lisbon’s 2014 Pedestrian Accessibility Plan, we have wanted to meaningfully boost walkability – but until the Walkability.App project, limited data was available. We know that successful policy implementations require scalable data on pedestrian mobility and the walking environment,” says João Bernardino.

With this grant, Lisbon will enhance the Walkability.App. Firstly, GDPR compliance will be ensured, and pedestrians will be able to attach images to their reports. In a second phase, participatory walking assessments will be undertaken to identify priority areas for improvement, followed by a project evaluation and analysis of its replication potential

“This is the first time Lisbon has systematically collected data on citizens’ experience of walking. Initially, promotion of the Walkability.App will be driven by city staff asking pedestrians in the street to use the app – we are targeting around 1,000 reports in ten different locations around Lisbon,” says João Bernardino. “We know that certain interventions will be required to improve walkability, such as the removal of barriers on sidewalks and planting more trees to make the experience more pleasant,” he adds.

Accessibility issues will also be addressed by the project, which will consider differing pedestrian needs, including factors such as age, gender and ability to move and interact with the surrounding environment. The city of Lisbon is working with a PhD student to improve accessibility, and people with reduced mobility will be among the participants using the Walkability.App.

João Bernardino hopes the project is successful and can be replicated in other cities in Portugal – and worldwide. “Data collection on the experience of walking is essential for our understanding of pedestrian needs, helping us to evaluate accurate measures and develop the best policies. This project will give us the opportunity to transform Lisbon into an excellent city for walking,” he says.

EIT Climate-KIC is committed to helping transform over 400 cities into thriving, climate-resilient communities. Our collaboration with FedEx shows what is possible when corporations, city officials and citizens come together to unite for a common purpose. The success of the Challenge demonstrates the transformative power of public-private partnerships in reimagining urban mobility.

To learn more about the other participating cities, click the button below. 

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