City Hall launches public consultation notice for new Rio bus tender

Rio de Janeiro City Hall launched, this Tuesday (July 22), the public consultation notice for the first stage of the new bidding process for the city's bus system. The announcement was made during a press conference at the Operations and Resilience Center (COR), attended by Mayor Eduardo Paes, Deputy Mayor Eduardo Cavaliere, Transportation Secretary Maína Celidonio, and Economic Development Secretary Osmar Lima. The public consultation will be open for 7 days. website of the Municipal Department of Transport, and the public will be able to submit suggestions and contributions. Initially scheduled for 2028, the bidding process for the bus system was brought forward as part of a court settlement with the Rio de Janeiro State Public Prosecutor's Office and the operating consortia.

"This is an important moment, an institutional shift in the history of the city of Rio. We dedicated ourselves during these first six months to implementing Jaé, and starting today, we begin the process that will revolutionize the bus system. The suffering will end. It won't happen overnight, but I want to reaffirm that by the end of my term in 2028, we will have completely overhauled this system, just as we did with the BRT. The change will be felt gradually, first in the West Zone, more specifically in Campo Grande and Santa Cruz," stated Eduardo Paes.

The new model will be implemented in stages. The first will be in the West Zone, where operations are most critical. In Campo Grande and Santa Cruz, for example, a significant expansion of the fleet is planned. There will be an increase of over 100% in the number of local buses. The expectation is that, by 2028, all regions of the city will be operating under the new rules.

Among the main changes is the end of cashless fare payments on board vehicles. This measure aims to increase safety for drivers and passengers and streamline boarding. Operators will be compensated by kilometers driven and performance, based on quality indicators, rather than by the number of passengers transported.

All buses in the new tender must be brand new, comply with EURO VI standards, be more efficient, and less polluting. The fleet will be 100% accessible, have low floors, be air-conditioned, and be equipped with comfort and safety technologies such as USB chargers, an air conditioning temperature sensor, a panic button, an automatic next-stop warning, internal CCTV cameras, a visible speedometer, an ADAS system, and a fatigue detection system.

 

The first phase will begin by April 2026 and will cover the Campo Grande and Santa Cruz lines in the West Zone. In Campo Grande, the number of buses connecting the neighborhood with other parts of the city will increase from 95 to 112. Buses serving local routes between neighborhoods will increase from 37 to approximately 75. In Santa Cruz, the fleet serving local routes will increase from 67 to approximately 103 buses.

"Our idea is to transition from the old contracts to the new ones in an orderly and gradual manner, ensuring a smooth transition for the population. This contract change involves investing in parking garages and purchasing over four thousand buses. Today, we began the bidding process for the first phase in Campo Grande and Santa Cruz. We've already started the new digital ticketing process, restructured the BRT system, and now we're moving on to the final pillar of the city's transportation structure, with the creation of the Rio System, the Integrated Bus Network," said Secretary Maína Celidonio.

System with new name

The system will be renamed: Rio System – Integrated Bus Network, replacing the former acronym SPPO (Public Bus Transportation System). Public parking garages are also planned to facilitate the entry of new operators into the system. The contract term is 10 years.

Bidding phases

– Phase 1 (until April/2026): Campo Grande and Santa Cruz
– Phase 2 (Nov/2025 to Sep/2026): West Zone, Vila Isabel and Governador Island
– Phase 3 (April 2026 to April 2027): West Zone, Barra, Jacarepaguá and North Zone
– Phase 4 (Nov/2026 to Nov/2027): same regions as before
– Final phase (September 2027 to August 2028): South Zone and lines with the highest rating

Progress since the first court settlement

Signed in May 2022 between the City Hall, the State Public Prosecutor's Office, and the operating consortia, the first judicial agreement enabled a significant restructuring of the city's bus system. Key measures implemented include a per-kilometer subsidy, the use of monitoring technology, and the imposition of penalties in cases of contractual noncompliance.

As a result, starting in June 2022, the fleet was reinforced with a thousand new buses, 200 lines were created or reactivated — including 65 night routes — and service was resumed at more than 800 stops, focusing on the most deprived regions.

A new judicial agreement was signed on April 30, 2025, again between the City Hall, the State Public Prosecutor's Office, and the four consortiums responsible for operating bus lines in Rio. This enabled the new bidding process for the municipal transportation system, previously scheduled for 2028, to be brought forward. Operational quality is now assessed quarterly using the Transportation Quality Index (TQI), which considers criteria such as: number of violations, quality of service, passenger satisfaction, average fleet age, availability of air conditioning, regular trips, and penalty-free operation. Companies with a TQI below 0,8 may lose their exclusive rights to the lines they operate.

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22 July 2025

Appointments: public consultation edict Bidding bus City Hall of Rio Integrated Bus Network Rio System