Análise da eficiência no modelo de financiamento do transporte metroferroviário no Brasil

Abstract

Railway passenger transport in Brazil is predominantly operated by public companies, the majority of which are heavily subsidized to fund their operations. Although the importance of subsidization as a source of financing transport systems is recognized, literature suggests it may be one of the reasons for their inefficiency. Unsatisfactory performance transfers the cost of inefficiency to transport users, or to the government, affecting both the population's access to the transport system and public budget, the latter of which is already severely compromised. The objective of this research was to analyze the efficiency of Brazilian railway systems relative to financing model, thereby examining the theory that subsidization affects efficiency and that there is an inverse relationship between the two. The efficiency of the railway companies was determined using the Data Envelopment Analysis - DEA method, supported by Window Analysis and with consideration to the variable returns model. The period under analysis dated from 2014 to 2019 and used a sample of eight companies, representing 90% of passengers transported by the Brazilian railway system. Tobit’s regression model was employed to determine the relationship between efficiency levels and subsidization. The resultant parameters revealed that subsidization is associated with higher expenses and lower revenues from tariffs. Thus, the initial theory was confirmed - subsidized systems are indeed, less efficient. A total cost function was determined, verifying the predominance of increasing returns to scale, confirming that most companies operate below their optimal capacity, and consequently that they do not benefit from scale gains. When identifying an inverse relationship between economic efficiency and subsidization, it is assumed that the public choice to utilize transport subsidization to improve the population's access to it, was not accompanied by a policy to improve efficiency, something which increasingly compromises the public budget. This fact becomes even more relevant when considering as there is a high social cost for establishing a tariff that covers the operational costs of metro-railway companies.