The European statistics office, Eurostat, said that out of about 17.5 million journeys registered in Portugal in 2017, almost 80 percent used private or rented motor vehicles.

On the other hand, only 4.6 percent of journeys were made on buses and 3.3 percent by train. The other 1.1 percent used other forms of transport such as bicycles.

Nevertheless, Portugal was still overtaken by Slovenia where 85 percent of journeys were made by car in 2017.

The countries that least used private cars were Luxembourg, Cyprus and Ireland.