School

• be registered on a train line
• have reasonable balance on the bike (without wheels and without frequent falls) and know how to use the brakes
• have a bicycle in good condition
• Once you have registered your child, you will be contacted by telephone to confirm their registration. As soon as the train is in working order and the student has active insurance, he/she can start traveling on it.

Personal accident and civil liability insurance will be taken out for each participant.

The train has a set line/route and timetable, with a few stops/reference stations. The train drivers must be informed of their passenger's participation and the point of entry.

There are a few simple rules that passengers must follow as a condition of joining the bike trains:

• go in single file with their colleagues, without overtaking
• pay attention to what the drivers say, do as they say and don't overtake the driver in front
• pay close attention to junctions
• slow down and pay more attention to the road when approaching a junction.

Each line has a WhatsApp group where parents and guardians share practical information and the location of the train in real time.

Each train will have at least one driver (monitor) for every four passengers. Drivers are members of the program, parents who join as drivers, other volunteers or members of local partner organizations (trained for this purpose).

Your child's bike must be in good working order:

• the brakes work well
• the tires are inflated
• the saddle is at the right height - their feet reach the ground, but their legs are not bent.

The last two conditions help to ensure that the passenger doesn't have to make an excessive effort and possibly become discouraged for future occasions.

This Municipal Program is based on a project created by a father who, when his son turned 5 and already knew how to control a bicycle, decided to create a bicycle train for his son's school - the CicloExpresso do Oriente. This father wanted to help make it possible for more children to cycle to school. The first train left on May 25, 2015 and took 12 children on its first day. Parents, volunteers and members of the Parque das Nações Parish Council ensured that, every Friday and almost uninterruptedly, the CicloExpresso do Oriente continued to take children to the Parque das Nações School.

At the beginning of 2017, another CicloExpresso appeared - the one in Barrocas, Aveiro. This one, too, led by parents, was successful and continues to take children to the Barrocas Primary School.

CicloExpresso was a pioneering project in the creation of bicycle trains in Portugal and achieved significant visibility, with multiple references in the media. It was also recognized as a Portuguese success story by the World Health Organization in the field of promoting physical activity in schools.

Lisbon City Council, inspired by this successful initiative, as part of the development of a School Mobility Program, which promotes active and sustainable mobility when commuting to school, started a pilot project called Comboios de Bicicletas (Bicycle Trains) and then a Municipal Program that began in the 2020/2021 school year, with 11 schools and 18 routes.

In 2021/2022, the program reached 15 schools, with 24 routes and 222 actual participants. Between March and June 2022, 220 trains ran (802 km) and 1,465 children were transported, for a total of 3,189 passenger-km.

Balance of the 2022/2023 school year:

• Total number of journeys: 372
• Total number of children: 240
• Total number of journeys (per child and per journey): 2220
• Total number of main train drivers: 28
• Total number of auxiliary drivers: 42
• Total number of trains (with at least 1 run): 25 / 28 shifts