Comprehensive and considered public transport regulation is essential to ensuring the quality, accessibility, and sustainability of bus systems. In a nation like Brazil especially, where over million people live in urban areas, a robust approach to transport policy and management is crucial to ensure Brazilians have reliable and affordable access to work, education, and essential services.
Inadequate or poor regulation can result in many service inefficiencies, increased costs, precarious trips, and social exclusion for marginalized groups. Comprehensive regulations ensure that public transport can function as as a tool for equity and sustainable development. The research was developed based on 51 interviews with public managers from 29 local transport agencies across all of the metro regions. However, the subsidy models adopted in many places do not ensure effective management by the government over the service provided, since more than half of the models are based on payments-per-passenger or something equivalent.
This format encourages an unsustainable competition for passengers, generates little incentive to improve the quality of existing services, and reduces transparency. The study ultimately suggests that, to overcome these challenges, a coordinated effort is needed between the federal, state, and municipal governments to formalize and improve concession contracts, ensure service reliability and transparency, and encourage the adoption of consistent regulatory practices throughout the country.
Open Data is Lacking But Necessary. The use of open data was also identified as essential to improving the planning and operation of public transport. This lack of transparency and data integration makes it difficult to effectively monitor the efficient operation of bus systems and limits the monitoring and planning capacity of cities.
For electronic ticketing systems, which collects essential data on transportation demand and use, challenges also persist. This also leads to difficulties in implementing adequate data management and in formulating efficient public policies. This demonstrates the potential of public-private partnerships to accelerate the transition to cleaner and more efficient fleets, in addition to showing the greater legal certainty resulting from having more structured operating contracts.
