Transport metabolism, social diversity and equity: The case of São Paulo, Brazil

The main conclusions are that although people at the lowest income level spend a high share of their income on transport, they have a very low overall mobility and contribute almost nothing to transport externalities. At the other extreme, the two highest income groups that use cars intensively invest much more time, space and money to travel around and so contribute to transport externalities 8.4-15.2 times more than the lowest income group. Such large differences challenge current transport policies in developing countries and call both for a reassessment of assumptions and principles as well as for opposition to the propagation of myths that have sustained such inequitable policies.