In the third of a series of articles about experiences of free public transport around the world, Daniel Santini from Brazil presents the experience of free public transport in that country. Daniel spoke at Fare Free London’s strategy meeting on 29th September, and his statement of support for Fare Free London is on our list of supporters here.

Read the article on the Ecologist website here, and we have copied the text below:

From utopia to reality: fare-free public transport in Brazil.

Cities in Brazil are at the forefront of an international movement towards abolishing fares on public transport.

Free public transport is a huge win for social justice, and has the potential to help deal with air pollution and global warming when combined with policies to cut down car use.

This article is the third part of our FREE PUBLIC TRANSPORT series based on talks given in the international session at the Winning Free Public Transport event, organised by Fare Free London.

Brazil now has 116 municipalities with completely free public transport, more than any other country in the world.

Abolition

These cities have an aggregate population of more than five million people, and twelve of them have more than 100,000 inhabitants. The largest is Caucaia, with a population of 355,000 people.

São Paulo, the largest city in America, with 11.4 million inhabitants, has partially implemented fare-free transport. Since December 2023, people have been able to ride the municipal buses for free every Sunday and holiday.

At the last municipal elections, on 6 October, a total of 657 candidates registered fare-free public transport proposals as part of their programmes, according to the BBC.

Among those who had already implemented full fare-free transport, the re-election rate was 89 per cent – higher than the average rate of 81.25 per cent – which was a record this year.

The attention that the abolition of fares received during the elections cannot be ignored, but this is not merely an electoral strategy or a one-off populist measure. It is not a passing fashion.

Air

After a remarkable rise in the last decade, fare free public transport is a reality in Brazil. How was it possible? What are the consequences and effects? What is the ecological dimension and possibilities that open up from this type of policy?

Before trying to answer these questions, I will look at some context about mobility in Brazil.

The concentration of cars and motorcycles on the streets of Brazil has increased considerably. In 1998, there was one car for every ten inhabitants. Now we have one car for every three inhabitants. Where once there was one motorcycle for every 66 inhabitants, now we have one motorcycle for every eight inhabitants.

In recent decades, traffic jams have worsened, the number of deaths and injuries has skyrocketed, and life in cities has become increasingly difficult.

In my city, São Paulo, the situation has become so critical that you can see the air. And, believe me, you do not want to see the air you are breathing. We are facing a drought and unusual hot temperatures.

Cycles

Pollution from cars mixed with smoke from fires, resulting from the climate emergency, during September. The air quality index, which is measured by sensors spread throughout the city, was rated “very bad” for the first time since 1996.

At the same time as the number of cars has increased, public transport has lost passengers. And this is not just in Brazil: public transport networks are facing a crisis all over the world.

In Britain, comparing transport usage from September 2023 to September 2024 to pre-Covid-19 levels shows that the only modes of transport that fully recovered are motor vehicles. Travel by bus, rail and Transport for London (mainly, the underground) is still below its pre-2019 level, all according to official government data.

In Brazil, even before the Covid-19 pandemic, the public transport networks of main cities were already shrinking. In ten years, public transport lost one third of its passengers. In São Paulo, buses transported passengers on three billion journeys during 2013. Ten years later, the number had fallen to two billion.

The pandemic worsened an already existing crisis. In most cities in Brazil, transportation is subsidised by ticket sales. The drop in passenger numbers has led to cycles of decline. Fewer passengers, less revenue, fewer buses and/or higher fares. The model has become unviable.

Electrify

The failure of this method opened the way for cities to seek other approaches to financing the system, including fare-free public transport.

The number of cities that have fare-free public transport has grown considerably in recent years, especially last year: there are now 116 municipalities with full fare-free public transport, financed mainly from the city’s own budget. The population that benefits is more than five million people.

Today, most cities with full fare-free public transport are concentrated in the south-east region, in the states of São Paulo, Minas Gerais and Rio de Janeiro. There is a contagion effect, with many local authorities taking inspiration from neighbouring cities.

In the cities that adopted the system, there was a great deal of popular support. The suspension of charges was accompanied by improvements in the systems. Some cities managed to electrify their bus fleets. The possibility of predicting revenues regardless of the number of passengers favoured investments and planning.

Researchers are trying to map environmental impacts of fare-free public transport. In São Caetano do Sul (SP), the largest city with fully free transport in the metropolitan area of São Paulo, preliminary data indicates that the abolition of fares has contributed to reducing traffic and emissions. The city has 165,000 inhabitants and is among those that started to electrify the bus fleet after fares were scrapped.

Precariousness

New alliances based on the ecologist perspective of strengthening public transport are being discussed, and one the main references is the movement #wirfahrenzusammen, which has brought together young environmentalists and trade unionists in Germany on climate strikes.

Together with the environmental perspective, the social one may be one of the most important in this debate.

The suspension of fares reveals a repressed demand: thousands of people all over the world are simply not moving, due to the price of the transport. In Brazil, in the cities that have adopted full fare-free public transport, the number of passengers doubled, tripled or even quadrupled!

That means that, to adopt this policy, governments must have funds not only to fully subsidise, but also to expand, the system.

There are ways to raise money in funding to pay for sustainable travel improvements. This may not be that easy, but it is particularly interesting, because it reverses the logic of austerity that is directly related to the deterioration of quality and precariousness of many transport networks.

Inequalities

Who said that public transport has to be profitable? In the calculation, we need to consider the ecological costs of having so many people driving around.

Why does nobody ask about the costs when governments prioritise resources and infrastructure for cars? Here we must consider not only the cost of building this infrastructure, but also the cost of keeping it.

Some say that, from an environmental perspective, free public transport is not worth it, because people would abandon non-motorised mobility to use public transport.

But do we want people riding bikes and walking because they have wonderful infrastructure for that – bike lanes and walkable neighbourhoods – or because they do not have money or options?

The increase in transport usage when fares are abolished happens mainly in poor areas. The measure has enormous potential to reduce social inequalities and guarantee the right to the city for the poorest. And this may be the key for cities that are more pleasant to live in, with less inequality and less pollution for future generations.

This Author

Daniel Santini is a journalist and has a master’s degree in Architecture and Urbanism from the University of São Paulo, where he is studying free public transport policies for his PhD. In September, his book No Turnstile: from utopia to the reality of Fare Free Public Transport (Sem Catraca: da utopia à verdade da Tarifa Zero) was published. It has not yet been translated into English. He works as a project manager at the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation’s São Paulo Office.

There is an international research network on free public transport. Data on the number of cases per country are part of an international survey carried out by Wojciech Kębłowski, from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, in Belgium.

Published 9th December 2024.