The National Congress is cooking up a bill that establishes bans on apps, creates market reserve and, as a result, punishes bus travelers with poor services and higher fares.
By suppressing the freedom to undertake and attacking innovation, it hinders the generation of income, investment and employment. It is the PL (Bill) 3819/2020, which changes the rules of interstate passenger transport.
The project —sponsored by Rodrigo Pacheco, heir to companies in the sector, as revealed by this leaf— processed through the Senate, arrived at the Chamber, where it remained for a few months, and reappeared in the last legislative week, looking like a naughty New Year’s agenda. It can be voted on at any time, with strong support from the bus company lobby.
Pacheco is not the only senator with a flagrant conflict of interest in this process. Chiquinho Feitosa (DEM-CE) is the CEO of a group of passenger transport companies with intercity and interstate lines in ten states plus the Federal District.
The travel market between municipalities is served by: a) consolidated companies, such as Senator Feitosa; b) micro-entrepreneurs who own a few vehicles (or just one); and c) tour charterers, which offer services to closed groups, renting buses from third parties.
In recent years, passengers have cheered on the arrival of Uber-style shared charter apps, which in turn have driven vital business to long-suffering micro and small transport entrepreneurs. Recent travelers attested to how easy and cheap it is to use apps that compare fares.
The bill’s attack on free enterprise takes place on multiple fronts.
First, it orders the revocation of 14 thousand lines granted in 2019 and 2020 (which cover 6,000 new routes and serve 128 new municipalities). The justification is that these lines were granted without a bidding process.
However, since the promulgation of the Constitution of 1988, there has been no auction of lines. All were authorized by the respective granting authority, without a bidding process, or depend on legal measures. The selective revocation of lines granted in 2019 and 2020 seems aimed at punishing applications and new entrants.
Another article establishes a minimum requirement of 40% of own fleet, restricting the operation only to large capitalized companies.
Finally, the PL establishes the obligatory nature of “feasibility studies”, a task that the great entrepreneur takes out of the letter, but which represents a disproportionate bureaucratic barrier to the micro-entrepreneur, lacking in resources, time and specialized brokers or consultants.
Difficulties established by law —justified by (alleged) legitimate concerns, but carefully designed to ward off incoming competitors—are ingrained and harmful protectionist practices that need to end.
PL 3,819 dares to attack the shared economy (“gig economy”), which drives growth in the world, which improves services and prices, and simultaneously generates jobs and businesses for drivers, freelancers, volunteers, artists, seasonal workers, among others.
A study by Somos Inovación listed São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro as leading cities in shared economy in Latin America, which so far have hosted business models from companies such as FlixBus, Buser and ClickBus.
Who wins, after all, with the approval of PL 3819?
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