The Observatory is a platform for the aggregation, development and divulgation of studies and data on urban mobility, road safety, and road user behaviour patterns, sponsered by the Portuguese Automobile Clube (ACP). Its consulting body is composed by the main entities with responsibilities in the sector, such as the Mobility and Transports Institute, Taxi and public transport organizations, highway operators, police forces, , road safety authorities, the National Infrastructures Company, and sectoral NGOs such as bycicle associations and environmental NGOs. Prof. Fernando Nunes da Silva is the scientific coordinator. The Observatory has conducted studies on the profile of portuguese drivers, the current situation of road safety, and mobility in Lisbon’s central axis.

Funding: Portuguese Automobile Club (ACP)
Duration: 2017-
https://observatorio.acp.pt/

Municipal Education Plans provide the blueprint for the management and planning of education facilities. It takes into account existing structures, current supply-and-demand patterns, and projects future needs based on cohort survival population estimates.
In the current context of decentralization of education, from the central administration onto municipalities, there is an added incentive to produce updated and thourough evaluations of the current system’s preformance and expected resilience in facing of shifting demographics.
Cascais Municipality, in Lisbon’s Metropolitan Area, tasked Instituto Superior Técnico with the creation of a Strategica Plan for Education, which included a series of public meetings with stakeholders and community involvement efforts.
The final document then served as a guide for the subsequent revision of the Municipal Education Plan.
Both projects were developed in close cooperation with the municipality’s Education Council and education department.

Funding: Municipality of Cascais

Duration: 2016-2018

This is a continuing line of collaborations with government institutions and municipalities in the field of public procurement and the definition of evaluation criteria for public contracting and public-private partnerships.
The new “Sintra proximity hospital” intends to partially relieve the overcrowded Amadora Sintra-Hospital. The study, conducted in collaboration with the municipality of Sintra, aims at defining objective and transparent criteria for the selection of the winning bid.
The Central Administration of the National Health Service (ACSS) tasked the group with a similar study, concerning the public procurement associated with the new “Hospital Lisboa Oriental”, including a second stage of revision after the project was relaunched recently.
The group also collaborated in a study on the location of the new Oeste Region Hospital.

Coordinator of “Consultadoria especializada em contratação pública no âmbito dos concursos públicos necessários à execução do Programa Renda Acessível” (Municipality of Lisbon).
Lisbon’s Accessible Rent Program aims at providing affordable housing within the Municipality of Lisbon. Recent trends in tourism, and the international context, have led to a significant increase in the average price, and a reduction in the available pool, of houses in central locations. Prof. Antunes Ferreira has helped the Municipality in setting-up a system of public-private partnership where the municipality provides the land, the private promoter builds, manages and maintains new housing stock, with a significant part being rent-controlled. The promoter receives the income from renting for a set period and, as the concession period experis, the municipality receives back the buildings. The program, initiated last year, is already concluding the first concession contracts and is expected to generate 6.400 units with affordable rent from a total of 9.000 new dwellings.

Funding: Municipality of Lisbon

http://www.lisboarendaacessivel.pt/en/home.html

This project, for the University of Lisbon Administration and the Municipality of Lisbon, is focused on creating a cohesive and well-structure network of public spaces, regulate motorized traffic, and provide guidelines for the correct integration of future building within the site.
The plan’s intervention area is composed essentially of the University of Lisbon’s central Campus. The space is characterized by monofunctional spaces with very seasonal uses, but also by heavy through-traffic that crosses the heart of the Campus, generating pedestrian-vehicular traffic conflicts. The public space lacks coherence and legibility, as interventions from different decades failed to uphold the original vision for the complex.
After a prolonged characterization and strategy stage, the plan has now moved into the proposal stage. In articulation with the the University’s Administration, the Municipality, and the different faculties, the plan establishes a cohesive system of public open spaces, that promotes soft mobility and the integration of the Campus’ existing buildings, as well as proposed extensions.
The street network is interveened so as to moderate traffic and create a set of sections where priority is given to pedestrians.
Surface parking is virtually eliminated, being replaced partially by the creation and expansion of underground parking structures.

Funding: Rectorate of the University of Lisbon
http://www.cm-lisboa.pt/viver/urbanismo/planeamento-urbano/planos-de-urbanizacao/planos-de-urbanizacao-em-elaboracao/elaboracao-do-plano-de-urbanizacao-da-cidade-universitaria

The revision of Sines’ Municipal Master Plan is an ongoing project for the Municipality of Sines (Southern Portugal).
The specificity of this municipality, host to Portugal’s largest deep-water port and an important industrial center, makes it an interesting case-study in the balancing and integration of social, economic, and environmental concerns within a relatively small territory.
With the characterization phase concluded, the project has now entered the proposal stage.
For the proposal, the Instituto Superior Técnico team has collaborated with the Municipality in defining and applying new methodologies for land-use classification based on digital land-use data, defining rural settlement limits, and revise the ecological and agricultural reserves.

Funding: Municipality of Sines
http://www.sines.pt/pages/650

Tomar’s Municipal Master Plan first revision is an ongoing project for the Municipality of Tomar (Central Portugal).
Tomar’s first municipal master plan dates back to 1994. The Instituto Superior Técnico team was sellected by the municipality to coordinate the first revision of the master plan. This long process has gone through a preliminary strategy stage, a full characterization of the municipality’s current issues and, more recently, the final proposal stage. The plan’s revision has now entered its final stage, as the involved entities reconcile planning decisions and legal standards immediately before the plan’s final approval.
The plan’s revision is a complex, multidisciplinary enterprise, that has yielded interesting outcomes related to new methodologies for urban perimeter delimitation, the evaluation of municipal property taxation, or the definition of the municipality’s ecological network.

Funding: Municipality of Tomar
http://www.cm-tomar.pt/index.php/educar/planos-ordenamento-territorio#revis%C3%A3o-pdm

In 2008 the municipality of Almada started the process for the first review of its Municipal Master Plan (PDM), which had been approved by the municipal council in 1993 and ratified by the Government in 1997. In this process, the Instituto Superior Técnico (IST) has participated with an interdisciplinary team of consultants, developing technical studies in different areas that allowed the City Council to build up strategies of development, reflected in the model of spatial planning and in the development of land-use plan and respective regulation.
A methodology to define the territorial development has also been carried out by IST, which implied the auscultation of the population through public participation sessions, workshops and one congress. This long and exhausting process sought to learn what were the main problems, opportunities and resources of the municipality, which were the basis to define the strategic lines and objectives of the PDM review.
After characterization studies round, IST also developed a wide range of studies to the municipality, among which are the definition of consolidated urban areas, the demographic projections until 2031, the study of equipment and the urban expansion gap, as well as the preliminary definition of the urban perimeters.
From 2016, with a revamped team constituted by the researchers listed below, it was developed the Territorial Model that preceded the preliminary proposal for the reviewed master plan and the draft of the land use regulation.
Other reports on different fields were developed by IST, in order to assist in the conception of the final report of the master plan. Among these are the reports in the fields of the participatory process and territorial identity, mobility, accessibility and transportation, landscape units and the strategic municipal ecological structure, as well as the report on the municipal financial availabilities.

Funding: Municipality of Almada
http://www.m-almada.pt/xportal/xmain?xpid=cmav2&xpgid=genericMenuContent&menu_title_generic_qry=BOUI=325617047&menu_generic_qry=BOUI=325617047&genericContentPage_qry=BOUI=325624467&actualmenu=325617047