This Thursday, October 23, the Mayor of Lisbon guaranteed the safety of the trams and buses of the municipal company Carris and reinforced that the GPIAAF’s preliminary report on the Glória elevator tragedy “does not indicate any political responsibility”.
Asked about the flaws in the legal framework of Carris’ transport systems, to guarantee adequate inspection and supervision that safeguards the safety of users, Carlos Moedas said he was unaware of this information present in the preliminary report of the Office for the Prevention and Investigation of Aircraft Accidents and Railway Accidents (GPIAAF), released on Monday, regarding the accident with the Glória elevator.
“I have no knowledge. What I am aware of in the report is in relation to elevators and lifts. We are not talking about everyday trams here”, said the social-democratic mayor on the sidelines of the conference “Gebalis 30 Years – Challenges of Municipal Housing Management”.
“Lisbonians know that Carris has been a company that has transported millions of people safely over all these years, so for us to be here raising doubts about the company’s safety in terms of buses and trams, I think this is not true, it never has been. People can be safe when riding a tram or bus. What we were talking about here is the elevators and the elevators are stopped.”he declared.
According to the GPIAAF’s preliminary report on the accident with the Glória elevator, on September 3, which caused 16 deaths and around two dozen injuries, including Portuguese and foreigners of various nationalities, the elevators, such as the Glória and Lavra, in Lisbon, as well as the Carris trams, are outside the supervision of the Institute of Mobility and Transport (IMT), being only under the supervision of the same management company.
The GPIAAF “found that Carris’ electric cars” are in the same situation [sem supervisão independente]as there is no legal framework for the technical and safety regulation of tram systems that circulate on non-reserved roads”.
“In this way, the safety conditions of trams, whether historic, modernized or modern, that circulate in public streets in common with road vehicles, either when they enter service or during their life”, are not, in Portugal, subject “to compliance with any rules other than those defined by the company itself, nor, mainly, to any type of independent supervision”, he concluded.
On Tuesday, the Minister of Infrastructure stated that the Government detected, after the Glória elevator accident in Lisbon, a gap in the supervision of these transportshaving immediately mandated the IMT to resolve it.