Study Shows Improved Urban Mobility Requires Modernization Of The Public Transport System
In the last decade, there has been a decrease in the number of investments in mass transport and an increase in the number of cars being used in large national cities. This data does not seem to make much sense for large cities, since the greater volume and movement of people requires greater practicality — which is usually provided by buses, trains and subways.
Thus, according to a study carried out by the National Confederation of Industry (CNI), Brazil needs R$ 295 billion to modernize urban mobility. This amount must be applied until 2042 in the 15 main Brazilian metropolitan regions. Professor Claudio Barbieri, from the Department of Transport Engineering at the USP Polytechnic School, comments that, when planned correctly, the great advantage of public transport is its speed and efficiency.
It is important to understand that the maintenance and provision of public transport is carried out at different scales. In municipalities, this service is offered by municipal bodies, so cities are responsible for it. In cases of intercity transport, the responsibility is under the inspection of an agency belonging to the city or a highway agency. “Many municipalities do not have enough resources to make the necessary investments to improve mobility, especially in large cities. In these cases, the federal government ends up helping”, comments Barbieri.
Public-Private Partnerships
The expert explains that transporting passengers by rail is not profitable anywhere in the world and uses the example of the São Paulo Metro balance sheet, in which fare collection is not enough to maintain maintenance costs and service quality. For this reason, it is necessary to use partnerships between the public and private sectors.
In addition, it is noted that the benefits for the city in terms of reduced travel time, less congestion and reduced gas emissions are five to 10 times greater than the investments. The problem of the question starts to be discussed when it is observed that these benefits cannot be obtained by a single unit, that is, the benefits are not observed by individual individuals, but by society as a whole.
Changes
The professor discusses that, for all public investments, the blanket is too short, which is one of the great challenges of developing countries. In addition, it is difficult to visualize what the new design of urban mobility is, since major changes in the sector have been noticeable in recent decades. It is possible to observe that many people started to use the car instead of public transport. Barbieri explains that the pandemic contributed to the solidification of this scenario, since, with the strengthening of the hybrid model, individuals began to prefer to go to work by car in the few days they need to leave their homes.
“Anywhere in the world, there is a collective awareness that quality public transport is a necessity”, declares the expert. This happens because the advantage of this system is speed, which cannot be guaranteed by any other mode of transport. To improve the current scenario, Barbieri explains that systems that can be built and operated in a short time are needed to improve mobility.