Crowded buses, crowds at subway stations, heavy traffic on the streets of big cities. The biggest difference that the coronavirus pandemic has brought to the common scenario of mobility and transport in the country is that, now, the recommendation is that all of this be repeated with the use of masks and alcohol gel. The sector, which already faces serious deficiencies in infrastructure and needs planning that identifies demands and is adapted to the reality of different regions, in this context needs to review most of its paradigms, seeking greater health security, while rushing to solve problems that drag on for years.
According to Felippe Benavente Canteras and Vitor Eduardo Molina Junior, coordinators of the Transport Engineering from the Faculty of Technology (FT) at Unicamp, in Limeira, the biggest challenges for professionals in the field are precisely in innovating in the sector while finding solutions to old problems. They also analyze the impact of recent phenomena, such as on-demand transportation, and comment on the advantages that students find in the course offered by Unicamp, which started in 2019.
Bus or bike?
The situation caused in public transport by the pandemic sets up a kind of vicious cycle. Due to social isolation, fewer people leave home, which reduces the availability of transport. As a result, those who depend on the subway or bus continue to face crowds at the same time that public transport companies see their revenues fall drastically, which makes necessary investments and innovations difficult. Data provided by the National Association of Urban Transport Companies (NTU), since the beginning of the pandemic in the country, the decrease in the number of passengers in large cities reached 80% and the reduction in the supply of services reached 53%. The entity estimates that losses caused by the pandemic could reach around R$9 billion by the end of 2020.
Those who have the most to lose are residents of peripheral areas. In addition to having less access to health services, they end up exposing themselves for longer periods of time in buses and trains on their journeys. Studies carried out in the capital of São Paulo show that the risk of death from Covid-19 in peripheral neighborhoods is up to ten times higher than in upscale neighborhoods. "The highest rates of contamination and deaths are precisely in the peripheral regions. In addition to several social factors involved, such as the lack of adequate health systems and the greater difficulty of maintaining social distancing, generally the peripheral population is the one that needs to use transport public transport over greater distances. So public transport can be directly related to higher contamination rates. And it is a very serious problem and the sector will have to adapt quickly", analyzes Felippe Canteras, course coordinator.
The professor comments that the capacity of public transport is a factor that determines the quality of services provided. Preventing crowds is no longer just a matter of comfort and becomes a health demand. "We need to expand public transport, it is one of the solutions for mobility. The big question now is how to make it safe, how not to crowd, how not to cause a 'Sé station at 18pm'", he assesses.
Although adaptations in the sector are necessary during the pandemic, post-covid mobility also promises significant changes. "Won't home office be expanded? If it is expanded and becomes a trend, could there be a reduction in the number of people who will need to use public transport? Studies will be needed after the pandemic to see what the behavior of the society, even to think about alternatives" asks Vitor Molina, associate coordinator of the course. In this sense, teachers believe that the secret to more efficient mobility in the future will be the ability to combine different forms of transport, which are suitable for different contexts. "The big issue for solving the problem post-pandemic, in addition to expanding and modernizing, is to integrate and diversify the forms of transport offering. This is the main revolution", comments Felippe.
One of the new developments that have emerged in recent years and which are pointed out by teachers as responsible for a revolution in mobility in large cities are on-demand transport alternatives, not just app-based cars, but also companies that rent bicycles and scooters. According to the teachers, part of the trips made in cities are short distances, which can be favored with options that eliminate operating expenses, do not promote crowds and can have a cultural change among younger people as an ally.
"For young people aged 18, 20 today, few are interested in acquiring goods, in having a car, for example. What interests young people today is having a transport service. I really believe that this is a change that has come to stay", says Felippe Canteras. However, he considers that these initiatives are not the immediate solution to the mobility problems of large cities if they are not combined with studies that show which options are most advantageous in each environment and with investments in infrastructure: "It's really cool to have a bicycle at the door of your house and you can cycle to work. But is this route adapted to be done by bicycle?"
Loads: diversifying modalities may be the best solution
If the effects of the pandemic are more evident in urban mobility, for freight transport they appear in the consequences of the economic crisis caused by the coronavirus. According to a survey by the National Transport Confederation (CNT), 74,6% of the country's transport companies had their work demands reduced, with 57,2% saying they reduced them a lot. This difficulty adds to the already problematic reality of the sector, which ranges from infrastructural issues to the dynamics of modal exploration: of the entire road network in the country, only 12,4% is paved.
"All of this shows how precarious the sector is in Brazil, how much it needs to expand and how much it becomes a bottleneck, since it is fundamental to flow national production. All GDP, all economic growth, is related with the development of the transport sector", analyzes the course coordinator. The proof of this is in the country's recent past. In 2018, the approximately 10 days duration of the truck drivers strike was responsible for the 10,9% drop in industrial activity in the month of May and reduced the expectation of GDP growth for that year from 2,5% to 1,6%, and in consolidated terms the drop was even greater, reducing growth of 2018 GDP at 1,1%.
Those who point to increased investment in railways as an immediate and unique solution for the sector are mistaken. Although they are a great option, due to the costs and time needed to expand infrastructure, professors argue that studies are needed regarding the reality of different regions of the country, in order to know what infrastructure already exists in these places and which types of modes would be more efficient in each situation. "Depending on reality, in one location it will be much more important to invest in expanding railways, which can be vital for the region's economic development, while in other regions, where there is already an established road structure, perhaps the priority will be to maintain these road systems. We also cannot forget the potential for water transport in other regions of the country.", explains Felippe.
However, the Transport Engineering professional must be aware that designing the future of the area must be work accompanied by the resolution of existing deficiencies. "We have to think about how to correct this current infrastructure and how we can work to modify and improve it. We need to dream, but we also have to see what problems we need to solve to leave a base ready to build something different ", ponders Vitor.
Young and interdisciplinary course
Started in 2019, the Transport Engineering course at Unicamp has the great advantage of allowing interdisciplinarity to be encouraged. "We have a great advantage because at FT we have very important courses for the development of transport engineering, which is the case of Environmental Engineering courses, Telecommunications courses and also an Information Systems course. So we have a tripod at Unicamp that helps us a lot to provide this interdisciplinarity to our course", explains the course coordinator.
This allows students' training to adapt to industry trends and show them doors that can be opened by working together with other areas. "Transport on demand opens up a very wide range for transport engineers and other professionals because this arrangement that allows you to rent a bicycle or a scooter is done via an app. So you need to work in conjunction with other professionals, which encourages teamwork and entrepreneurship", points out Vitor Molina.
Focusing on land transport, the course offers subjects that emphasize infrastructure and planning over 11 semesters and prepares young professionals to work in the public and private sector, from government bodies and regulatory agencies, to highway and railway concessionaires, to innovative companies and startups, such as on-demand transportation. Teachers believe that this beginning of the course has been useful for inserting students into the professional world.
"What we tried to bring in this first year of the course is precisely the reality of the market and the activities that students can have after graduating. In the first two years, students end up having greater contact with basic subjects and intensify specific subjects later of this period. So, some students have already approached teachers to develop Scientific Initiation projects. There is a mobilization of coordination to encourage our students", reports the associate coordinator.
For Felippe Canteras, the main objective that has been built is to train professionals ready to work in different contexts. As the teachers themselves show, the sector is essential for the country's growth and, with or without a pandemic, innovation will be necessary. "It seems that our transport engineer will be the miracle engineer (laughs), of course not. But he will be able to work in multidisciplinary teams. Our engineer must have the ability to work with an environmental, civil engineer, with architects , urban planners. They are multifunctional so that we can, in fact, accelerate the concept of smart cities, which is so talked about and so little seen in practice. The transport engineer is therefore one of the pillars of smart cities", he concludes.