CURITIBA, Brazil (By Vidisha Parasram, Horizon International, Yale University, Department of Biology) April 28, 2003 — Due to agricultural mechanization from the 1950s to the 1980s, cities across Brazil experienced rapid growth with the migration of people from rural areas to urban areas. Curitiba, the capital city of the State of Paraná, experienced some of the highest growth in the country with population increases reaching an estimated 5.7% a year during those decades. This uncontrolled increase in population presented circumstances that demanded effective city planning in areas ranging from social services, housing and sanitation, to the environment and transportation. From the 1940s to the 1960s urban planners in Curitiba began the process of creating an urban Master Plan. Part of that plan included constructing a consolidated public transportation system to move people easily throughout the metropolitan area and its surrounding municipalities.

Background:

Curitiba, Brazil

With the approval of Curitiba’s Master Plan in 1966, guidelines were established that restructured the city’s radial configuration into a linear model of urban expansion. Accordingly, urban planners realized that transportation land use and road systems can be used as integrative tools of development in compliance with these guidelines. In the 1970s, zoning laws were set in place and Structural Avenues were designed to direct linear growth by attracting residential and commercial density along a mass transportation lane. In 1974, the main mass transit line began to operate along those avenues.

In 1980, the city finally developed and constructed transfer terminals that operated like subway stations. The terminals, constructed with telephone accessibility, attracted newsstands and flower shops and became aesthetically attractive and user friendly.

It was also at this time that the city introduced automatic ticketing to the system. This form of payment allowed passengers to purchase metal tokens at terminals, newsstands or shops, or pay with money at the bus terminals. They hoped to increase the speed of transfers and boarding of passengers which would expedite bus circulation. The city believed that under careful planning of transfers, passengers could travel throughout the system for only one fare.

Despite the fare issues, the city had to deal with the overwhelming attraction of the express system. Upon its implementation in 1974, its novelty and popularity resulted in overcrowded busses that caused delays in boarding at stops and terminals. To compensate for the loss in time, bus drivers would increase speed, creating potentially dangerous situations and accidents. The city found it necessary to implement speed control monitors, create boarding tubes and tailor bus designs to accommodate the growing demand.

The city also had to create a system in which individual bus companies that catered to the various zones in the city could share revenues without competing with each other. Traditionally the city was partitioned in different zones that were serviced by individual bus companies. But, with the creation of the inter-district routes and the implementation of the Integrated Transportation Network along with the unified fare, passengers could pay one company at a terminal located in a particular zone and ride the system without paying the other bus companies. In 1987 the city addressed this problem by distributing transportation revenue based on the number of kilometers traveled by vehicle type for any given company. With each company given a number of route kilometers and a timetable, each company competes with the schedule not with other companies (Rabinovitch and Hoehn, 1995).

Bus and Station Design

After the construction of terminals and the implementation of the unified fare, the city wanted to develop busses and stations designed with the intention of avoiding fare evaders. For this reason, busses are designed with three doors, two doors for exiting and a front door for boarding. In a category by itself, these urban busses are constructed with turbo engines, lower floor levels, wider doors, and a convenient design for mass transit. Curitiba also developed boarding tube stations that were placed along direct routes and express lanes. To increase convenience, boarding efficiency and reduce fare evaders the tubes elevate passengers to the bus platform level where automatic doors operated by the tube conductor open parallel to the bus doors. Passengers pay an entrance fare at the turnstile and wait for their respective direct or express bus to pass. Disembarking passengers leave the stations through a direct exit.

To further assist passengers, each tube station is equipped with station and route maps and with small lifts situated beside the entrance of the tube to help disabled passengers, strollers, and passengers carrying heavy bags enter the tubes with agility.

The Present System of Transportation

The transportation system is made up of three complementary levels of service that include the feeder lines, express lines and inter-district routes. The feeder lines pass through outlying neighborhoods and make the system easily accessible to lower density areas. Sharing the roads with other vehicles, these feeder lines connect with the express system along the structural corridors.

The express system then utilizes these dedicated bus lanes and transports large numbers of passengers to various locations along these structural corridors, thus operating much like a surface subway system. The inter-district routes allow passengers to connect to the axis of the express lines without entering the central city area. The Integrated Transportation Network (ITN) encompasses transfer terminals, express routes, direct routes using boarding tubes, feeder and inter-district routes supplemented by center city routes, neighborhood routes, night routes, special education routes, and pro-park routes which collectively make up Curitiba’s Mass Transit System (MTS). Through carefully planned tube or terminal connections, passengers can pay one fare and travel throughout the system. To facilitate use of the system, passengers can identify a specific route by the color and type of the bus used. The thirteen express lines that make up the express bus system for instance, operate on the structural corridors and are represented by large red articulated, bi-articulated or silver “padron” busses.

Articulated and bi-articulated busses are large busses capable of carrying 170-270 passengers respectively and are joined in the center by a pivot joint and flexible tubing that allows the bus to curve around turns without occupying more than one lane of traffic. Articulated busses have one joint and bi-articulated have at least two connected units. They are virtually like a train with connected cars. These busses connect the transfer terminals to the city center. Passengers pay, enter and exit at tube stations.

The feeder routes are characterized by orange conventional busses that connect the terminals with the surrounding neighborhoods.

Inter-district routes use green padron or articulated busses that connect transfer Terminals to different districts without passing through the center of the city. The direct speedy routes are silver and use the tube stations along routes that link the main district and surrounding municipalities with Curitiba. Then there are Conventional Integration Radial Routes that are marked by yellow padron busses. They operate on the normal road network between the surrounding municipalities, the integration terminals, and the city center.

The City Circle Line is a fleet of white mini-busses that circle the major transport terminals and different points of interest in the downtown area. All school busses are marked with a yellow stripe and busses dedicated for the disabled are blue. The Integrated Transport System is made up of 340 routes that utilize 1,902 busses to transport 1.9 million passengers per day. The entire network covers 1,100km of roads with 60km of it dedicated for bus use. There are 25 transfer terminals within the system and 221 tube stations that all allow for pre-paid boarding. The Integrated System also has 28 routes and special busses dedicated to transporting special education and disabled patrons.

Conclusions

Curitiba’s system of transportation is an example of effective urban planning. The city’s urban planners recognized that even if growth in population cannot be controlled, the development of infrastructure in the city can guide the city’s expansion. By approaching transportation as tool used to attain a greater solution rather than as a solution to an advancing problem, they were able to implement an efficiently constructed, cost-effective transportation system that finances itself. The city used busses because it had a tradition of using busses. While this system is powered by diesel, the reduction of the number of cars used compensates, if not surpasses, the difference in carbon monoxide emissions.