Curitiba, Brasil (Here Progress Travels By Bus)

Thirty-two out of every one hundred curitibanos make daily use of mass transportation. Each biarticulated bus can carry 270 passengers.


The City’s mass transportation system aims to be, above all else, humane. Senior citizens are entitled to seats specifically designated for them and physically disabled individuals in wheelchairs have their own area on vehicles as well as elevators to get on and off the buses.

In a coordinated effort to provide the RIT with the necessary support, the timetables of industry, commerce, services, schools and civil servants were adjusted to begin their activities at different times during the peak hours from 7:30 AM to 9:30 AM, thus offsetting possible traffic jams while distributing the need for mass transportation. The best measure taken at the level of the Metropolitan Area transport administration however, was the adoption of the tarifa social (affordable bus fares), in force to this date. Whoever gets on a bus may choose to follow an integrated route using other buses in the system without paying another bus fare. Shorter trips, often more central ones, subsidize the longer and more peripheral trips, especially the ones coming from neighboring municipalities that make up Curitiba’s Metropolitan Area.

Curitiba’s Public Transportation Integrated Network maintains 2,100 buses (1,500 in its urban perimeter and another 600 integrated metropolitan ones). Of these 1,500, 1,280 operate on a daily basis and transport 2.04 million passengers each and every workday (1.55 million from within the Curitiba area, totaling 800 thousand passengers that pay fares; and 490 thousand from within the Metropolitan Area of which 230 thousand pay fares). Buses travel every day along all the routes of Curitiba and surrounding areas, distributed among 385 different lines (285 of them urban and 100 ones in the metropolitan areas) and five thousand bus stops. In addition to these bus stops, there are 351 tube-stations and 29 integrating terminals.

(Here's a twist to sweeten the deal. We could use an intelligent mix of locally appropriate methods of transportation. Biofuels, renewable electricity, light rail, zero-carbon taxis, bicycles, rickshaws, pedestrian friendly residential and commercial districts etc. Not just healthier environmentally, but for local economies as well. -Buddha)