A vida sobre duas rodas sob a perspectiva do mototáxi: exemplos no Triângulo Mineiro (MG) e no Sul Goiano (GO)

Abstract

The public service that offers individual transportation by motorcycles, known as motorcycle taxi, started in Brazil in the mid-90s, primarily, due to a poor public transportation system and an uncontrolled urban sprawl. Understating these new members from the public transportation scenario became an obligation to any academic in the transportation field. The goal of this thesis is to demonstrate if this mean of transportation achieves its role in the authentic urban development. A multi-case study was conducted by exemplification of motorcycle taxi services from three cities located in the region of Triângulo Mineiro in the state of Minas Gerais and in the South of the state of Goiás, all of them in Brazil; the cities were Araguari (Minas Gerais), Ituiutaba (Minas Gerais) and Catalão (Goiás). This study also presents an alternative heuristic method, called PEESA Method, by which five aspects on motorcycle taxis were verified: political, epidemiologic, economic, social and environmental. Furthermore, an extensive literature search was made through document analysis and empirical research, leading to the interviewing of the five social players: motorcycle taxi drivers, users of motorcycle taxi services, the state, pedestrians and drivers of other means of urban transportation. The results of this study showed that, from the political and socioeconomic perspective, motorcycle taxis increasingly collaborate to the life quality of many people, though the service offers environmental and epidemiological risks. In conclusion, it is possible to say that, and taking into consideration the aspects here proposed, public transportation by motorcycle enforces social justice, giving transportation planners ways to promote this very important mean of urban mobility.