3.3 Methodology, analysis, and diagnose
At a municipal scale, analyses were made to achieve the following objectives:
o Understand the motives for intra and inter municipal trips;
o Identify the needs of Alcobaça citizens that made them go out of their municipality;
o Identify the main attracting poles of Alcobaça regarding visitors;
o Which is available the transportation network, and what are its weakness and potentials.
At the scale of the City of Alcobaça, the analyses were made to understand the following:
o Identify the main atractores of the city regarding visitors (both at a regional an d local
scale);
o What motivates inhabitants of Alcobaça to look for other cities in other municipalities;
o How good is the road network and the public transport service in Alcobaça;
o What is the present state of the parking system in Alcobaça.
To achieve the objectives of the first part of the study (done at the Municipal scale) several
techniques were used. In order to understand the main attractors and trip generators of the
municipality, field trips were made, there were also done interviews with the municipality’s
technicians, other information was retrieved from existing GIS databases of the municipality
services, and from statistical data and, maybe the most interesting technique, was an analysis
made to the CESAP inquiries.
CESAP inquires are made by request of Instituto Nacional de Estatistica (Nacional Statistics
Institute of Portugal), and present the list of several services and equipments, that may or may
not exist in the parish. In case they do not exist, it must be indicated the natural choice where
people go to look for them.
One of the first results of these analyses highlighted the attractive capacity of Alcobaça but also
of Caldas da Rainha (Figure 3).
Due to its regional context Alcobaça is clearly divided into three sections: One in the North, with a
close relationship with Marinha Grande and Leiria, another in the centre where the main attractor
is the City of Alcobaça and finally another in the South with a clear relationship with Caldas da
Rainha.
This highlights the fact that Alcobaça is under great pressure, and if measures are not taken in
the short/middle term, there is a possibility of loosing perished to neighbouring municipalities. In
fact that has occurred in the last years with the village of Martingança that used to be part of
Alcobaça, and today is part of the municipality of Marinha Grande.
9/17