By looking for improvements in urban mobility to meet the flow of tourists expected for the games of World Cup 2014 and Olympic Games 2016, local, state and federal governments are implementing tens of projects for metros, monorails, high-speed trains, regional trains and modern bus corridors. Investments amounting to more than US$ 42 billion are expected for this decade that can change the way by which million of people make their displacement within large Brazilian cities. Rail transportation should gain more space. “We cannot keep relying anymore on automobiles only,” states Rodrigo Vilaça, Chairman of ANTF (National Association of Railway Carriers), which traveled recently to Germany to attend a tradeshow of the sector and checked the interest of companies from several countries on the investment plans in Brazil.
Today, eight million passengers are carried on rails in the country, and more than 70% of this figure is in the cities of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, which have the largest transportation systems in this area. This figure is low when compared to other countries. In Beijing, capital of the People’s Republic of China, for example, six million passengers use this type of transport every day. With the new projects, the number of passengers carried on rails should exceed ten million within four years and may increase even more to the end of this decade. A new system that can make its debut in Brazilian cities is the Light Rail Vehicle, identified as LRV in this industry, which is a kind of passenger train with pieces of equipment and infrastructure lighter than those used in Metro. The cities of Vitória, Rio de Janeiro, Salvador and Santos are evaluating its adoption, which may represent orders totaling more than US$ 266 million to be placed to manufacturers of capital goods.
There are also expectations in terms of High-Speed Train (HST), which may involve more than US$ 18 billion of funds in the construction of a railroad system with trains capable of running on rails at more than 200 kilometers per hour, interconnecting the cities of São Paulo, Campinas and Rio de Janeiro. It is expected that the bidding process for the first phase, involving the technology to be used and the railroad operator, occurs this year. “This is a project that involves huge investments and a wide chain (of suppliers),” says Paulo Godoy, Chairman of Brazilian Association of Infrastructure and Base Industries. As one of the five largest cities of the world, with 21 million inhabitants, São Paulo holds the major investment plan to carry passengers on rails in the next years. The budget proposed by the State government has provisions for investing US$ 2.6 billion in Metros, only in 2012. Monorails and regional trains are also in the targets.
One example is the line to be operated by monorail track, connecting Congonhas Airport to Morumbi Station of CPTM (Companhia Paulista de Trens Metropolitanos) railroad. The first phase of the enterprise should be completed until 2014, and the complete line should be delivered by 2015. US$ 1.92 billion should be invested in the project. As the host city of Olympic Games 2016, Rio de Janeiro is also being prepared. The capital of the State of Rio de Janeiro has been working to deploy and implement projects of exclusive bus corridors, so-called as BRTs (Bus Rapid Transportation), which run on segregated tracks and are serviced by modern stations, in addition to offering more comfortable vehicles equipped with air conditioning systems. One of the largest projects is TransOlímpica, which has provisions for investments above US$ 520 million. The work includes tracks for vehicles, bicycles, and also exclusive bus corridors capable of carrying 100,000 passengers per day.
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