The “high circles” in the transportation market in São Paulo

Abstract

For four years, the city of São Paulo has been awaiting the new bids for the bus services. In this period, actors have questioned the levels of capital concentration of this market, both outside and inside the City Hall. So far, however, we still know little about the sets and transformations of private bus companies. Based on primary data on ownership and company features, this paper seeks to contribute to this task by addressing the sets of the public transportation private market in the municipality in the last four decades. Initially, based on recent contributions, the main features of the urban political economy of the bus services in São Paulo are presented. Next, the analysis of the composition of the market in relation to the distribution of the bus fleets and the property ties in the last four decades are shown. The data presented suggests a more complex and competitive market in the face of the consolidated narrative in public and academic debate, in which was argued that a few family of owners have been dominating the market for decades. This is especially critical when attention is focused on the political transformation of the more newest actors in the market in the 1990s and 2010s.