Administrative assistant Marco Aurélio dos Santos, 45, spends more than four hours every day on the São Paulo train and subway.
Between Campo Limpo (extreme south), where he lives, to Guaianases (east side), where he works in a health unit, he records the movement of trains with his cell phone, posts news items on social networks, and usually charges the state government about improvements.
Although he still rides part of the route with full trains, Marco Aurélio says that most of the way, the trains have a much smaller capacity than the one he used to face before the pandemic.
The numbers confirm Marco Aurélio's perception. According to ANPTrilhos, the demand for this type of transport has dropped by 80%, and today it is around 34% than it was before, with the reopening measures taken by municipalities.
Metro and train systems, which transported 12 million people a day in the country before the Covid-19 pandemic, have already accumulated R$ 4 billion (US$ 748 million) in lost revenue this year and threaten to stop.
Translated by Kiratiana Freelon