Curitiba- Public Transport

                                                          Case Study- Curitiba

Curitiba is the capital of the state of Parana in Brazil. The city has in the region of 1.8 million inhabitants. It has the fourth highest national GDP in Brazil at $61 billion. Curitiba has a few transport systems that reduce congestion within it.

The main system used in Curitiba though is buses. Curitiba has one of he best transport systems in the world, the Bus Rapid Transit systems is incredibly inventive and very effective. Bus systems provide a very versatile form of public transport with a vast flexibility to serve a variety of access needs in an unlimited range of locations throughout the urban environment. Yet despite the obvious advantages of a bus service, buses inching their way through congested streets don’t gain any favour. The essence of a Bus Rapid Transit scheme is to improve bus operating speed and reliability on arterial streets by reducing the possibility of delay.

The bus system in Curitiba plays a large role in making this city a liveable place. The buses run very frequently some as often as 90 seconds and are incredibly reliable. The stations and stops are comfortable, practical and attractive and thus Curitiba has one of the most heavily used, yet cost effective, systems in the world. So much so it has been compared by many to a subway system, it has bus movements completely unimpeded by traffic lights and congestion, fares are collected before boarding thus making passenger loading and unloading incredibly fast. All this is done above ground visible to the eye. Around 70% of Curitiba’s commuters use the BRT to get to work lowering the levels of cars on the road creating congestion free streets and unpolluted air for the inhabitants of Curitiba.

Thirty years ago, Curitiba’s planners integrated public transport very heavily into their urban plan. They decided to initiate a plan that met the needs of every commuter and traveller and not those using cars. They also avoided large scale expensive projects in favour of hundreds of smaller initiatives. A previous plan for Curitiba had been drawn up in 1943 which had envisioned growth in the use of the car and thus wide boulevards emanating from the centre were built to accommodate this. Then in 1965, prompted by fears that Curitiba’s rapid growth would create congested streets, they created a new Master Plan. Downtown Curitiba would no longer be the destination for travel but would become the transport hub. Public transport would replace the car as the primary means of transport within the city. The wide boulevards developed in the earlier plan would provide the space for exclusive bus lanes in which the BRT operates.

Curitiba’s bus service is composed of a hierarchical system of services. Minibuses run in residential areas which feed passengers to conventional buses on circumferential routes around the centre and the inner districts, with the backbone of the system being the BRT which operates on the five main roads into the centre (CBD) of the city. Buses running on the dedicated lanes stop at cylindrical, clear-walled stations/stops with turnstiles, steps and wheelchair lifts. Passengers pay their fares as they enter the station and they wait for the bus on raised platforms within the station. The buses don’t have steps instead ramps extend out from the bus to the station when the doors open. The stations are very effective as they serve the dual purpose of providing shelter from the elements and allowing the simultaneous loading and unloading of passengers rapidly. This system of same level bus-boarding, plus pre-boarding fare payment means that there is a typical dwell time at each stop of no more than 19 seconds per stop.

Passengers pay a single of fare of 40 cents for travel through the whole system with unlimited transfers. Transfers occur within the pre-paid areas of stations so transfer tickets are not required saving time and money for the passenger. Business has also been encouraged within the larger terminals with small retail shops and newspaper stands locating in them.

Ten private bus companies run the services with them being paid by the amount of distance covered not the number of passengers carried, which allows a fair distribution of routes amongst them. All companies earn operating profits and after the buses fall out of use they are given over to the government who use them for school runs.

To make people use the buses very limited parking is available in the business districts and most employers offer transport subsidies to low-paid employees. The popularity of the BRT saw a massive change from car use to bus use. Based on a 1991 survey the BRT saved about 27 million auto trips a year, saving 27 million litres of fuel annually. 28% of BRT users previously travelled by car and compared to eight other Brazilian cities of its size, Curitiba uses 30$ less fuel per capita, resulting in one of the lowest pollution levels in the country. Today about 1100 buses make 12,500 trips every day, serving more than 1.3 million passengers. 80% of travellers use the bus routes and Curitibanos only spend 10% of their income on travel, well below the national average. It is defiantly a massively successful system. Costing only $200,000 per kilometre for construction it was much cheaper than all the other options debated in 1965.