Railroad and agribusiness logistics: evaluation of public and private policies of Brazilian railway system

Author(s)

Vitor Pires Vencovsky

• Document type: Doctoral Thesis
• Press: Campinas, SP.
• Institution: Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Instituto de Geociências
• Defense date: 2011-08-29

Examining board members

Ricardo Castillo; Fernando Cezar de Macedo Mota; Samuel Frederico; Aldo Aloísio Dantas da Silva; Fabio Betioli Contel

• Advisor: Ricardo Castillo

Abstract

The work aims to analyze public and private policies of the railway system considering the organization, use and regulation of Brazilian territory. These policies are conditioned by some characteristics of the current period technical-scientific and informational, such as the emergence of a new production paradigm started in the 1970s, the expansion of productive spatial circuits of some agricultural products, modern agricultural expansion in areas of Cerrado, consolidation of productive commodity regions distant from ports and lack of adequate transport infrastructure and priority of the country's insertion in international markets through export of products with low added value and high volume. From these new variables, Brazil has been considered by certain hegemonic agents and by the State an obstacle for new requirements of competitiveness and territorial fluidity imposed by international market. The reactivation of the Brazilian railway system, started in 1996, sought to address these requirements. This process focused, initially, only one of the railway modalities of transport, high-performance dedicated to the transport of commodities, and ignored other possibilities, such as intercity passenger transport, general freight and underground. Moreover, from the Acceleration Program Growth (PAC) and the National Transportation Plan (PNV), is evident the priority to expand the rail system with outward oriented networks, linking some commodities productive regions to exporting ports. The railroad track and organization of its rail yards become functional to these export activities. In the public and private policies currently established, cities are considered obstacle to the logic of the railway system, since the existing railway stations are disabled, abandoned or demolished and new rail yards are being built away from urban areas. BNDES (Brazilian Development Bank) has decisively participated in the planning and implementation of these policies, whether in technical studies, such as participation in shareholding in the railway and providing subsidized funding. The work presents some conclusions about current public and private policies of the railway system, emphasizing that these are promoting the integration of the territory to meet certain activities, agents and competitive regions related to soybeans and iron ore spatial circuits. Meanwhile, the society remains distant from benefits made possible by the railroads (AU)