CONSIDERAÇÕES SOBRE O PAPEL DO ESTADO COM RELAÇÃO AO TRANSPORTE PÚBLICO POR ÔNIBUS ANTES, DURANTE E APÓS A PANDEMIA

Abstract

Since the beginning of the 21st century, in Brazil, Public Transport by bus has undergone a degradation process, leading the population to opt, more and more, for other forms of locomotion, such as individual private transport, generating a drop in quality and economic impacts for the collective sector. This modal shift was due to the lack of attractiveness of urban buses, with a flawed fare system and cross-subsidy policies that usually raised the price of the ticket. Users, often from lower economic classes, felt the susceptible fare increases in their skin and had a minimum of financial condition saw in cars or motorcycles an escape valve for mobility, even social. Such evasion further hampered the crisis with Public Transport, which saw itself with less demand and with companies in financial imbalance. With the COVID-19 pandemic, a situation that was already proving critical, it became even more worrying. Bearing in mind that social distancing policies contributed to the crisis in public transport by drastically reducing demand and, consequently, modal collection. Therefore, affecting their maintenance and investment capacity, thus promoting a financial imbalance of public transport concessionaires, who find the tariff increase the only way to balance their accounts. This fare increase scenario reactivates the vicious circle of poor transport planning by intensifying the evasion of the collective public mode, promoting private mode, increasing congestion, and making the reality of urban mobility increasingly uncertain. In this sense, from a study of the concepts of urban mobility, its components and the parameters of the legislation that ensure the right to quality public transport, the duty of the public power in all its instances, from the municipal body to the federal, with coordinated planning in this mode. Still, in such an organization, investments that aim at both tariff reduction, through the subsidy, and the improvement of infrastructures, should be contemplated to try to attract users of the private mode, be it own or shared. Finally, this analysis aims to promote sustainable urban mobility to ensure an efficient, attractive, fair Public Transport service that, above all, has respect for the dignity of the human person.