158 | Public-Private Partnerships in Urban Bus Systems
Rio de Janeiro is the second-largest metropolitan area in Brazil, with roughly 11 million people in more than 30 municipalities. Economic and population growth over the past two decades have resulted in congestion amid an increase in personal vehicles and motorcycles. Until a few years back, Rio had the third-worst congestion among cities worldwide, as residents wasted, on average, 100 hours per year in traffic jams (Ramalho 2015). From 2001 to 2011, personal vehicles increased 62 percent, while the motorcycle fleet tripled (Mobilize n.d.). Together, motorcycles and cars represented more than 88 percent of the total number of vehicles in Rio. Scheduled to host the 2014 Soccer World Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games, Rio adopted a plan to improve public transportation options in the city, which included expansion of the metro system and implementation of BRT corridors. The local government launched TransOeste in 2012, the first of three BRT corridors to solve the city’s mobility issues and congestion. TransOeste led to the development of 62 stations and 61.5 kilometers of bus routes. The project had four principal aims: • Alleviate congestion and improve the supply of public transportation • Reduce travel times and pollution • Connect the West Zone, which lacked public transportation options, with the rest of the city • Carry 220,000 passengers per day. TransOeste, together with the rest of Rio’s integrated transportation system, has improved public transportation in the city despite facing many challenges. TransOeste was inaugurated in 2016 during the Olympic Games for game attendees only. After the games, it became available to the general public. TransOeste reduced travel times by 65 percent, from 120 minutes to 43 minutes, and surpassed its ridership objectives, serving 216,000 passengers each day (BRT Consortium n.d.). The total cost of TransOeste was US$470 million
TABLE A.14 Lessons
learned from the TransOeste bus rapid transit project in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
BEST PRACTICES
AREAS FOR IMPROVEMENT
• TransOeste is part of an integrated transportation system with the metro and train systems. [operation risk] • Continued political support and championing of the project were key to the project’s success. [political and social risk] [planning risk] • Attendees at the 2016 Olympic Games followed the authorities’ advice and used the public transportation system—especially bus rapid transit—without restrictions, which alleviated the city’s traffic during the games. [operation risk] [political risk] • All stations are accessible to the disabled. [political and social risk]
• Technical designs that reduce whole-of-life costing are key to achieve value for money and service quality in the project. Inadequate design led to asphalt being used instead of concrete. Asphalt has not been able to withstand the weight of crowded buses and has caused potholes, broken vehicles, and schedule delays. [operation risk] [planning risk] [natural and environmental risk] • Maintaining the project infrastructure is key to achieving the project’s service quality goals. In this case, the government failed to maintain the infrastructure. [maintenance risk] [operation risk] [political risk] • Implementing measures that increase transparency and reduce political influence are key to achieving the project’s results and avoiding corruption. Political risk is often present in low- and middle-income countries, especially in large, sophisticated projects with a lot of visibility. In this case, TransOeste was involved in corruption scandals that affected the government’s credibility. [operation risk] [political risk] • Changes to the project design and structure can result in higher costs. In this case, the contract got renegotiated, which resulted in higher-than-expected costs. [operation risk] [planning risk] • Demand has risen and saturated the system. [design risk] • A lack of safe crossing points has caused dozens of deaths and hundreds of injuries along the TransOeste routes (Kassens-Noor et al. 2016). [planning risk] [design risk] [operation risk] [political risk]
Source: World Bank.
