Economics of Transportation· 2026Q1
A faster commute, a better opportunity? The impact of Bus Rapid Transit in Brasília
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- Q1SCImago
- 2026year
Short summary
Brasília's Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) Expresso DF implementation in 2014 cut commute times by 55% and increased hourly wages by 10.16% for residents of a low-income district, but had no significant earnings impact on a middle-income district.
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Key points
- Brasília's BRT Expresso DF reduced commuting times by 55% upon its 2014 implementation.
- Low-income district residents saw a 10.16% increase in hourly wages post-BRT, unlike middle-income residents.
- Improved access to higher-paying CBD jobs is the likely mechanism for wage gains in the low-income district.
- No significant employment effects were observed for either district.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Abstract
Do investments in Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) benefit workers equally across neighborhoods? We study the labor market effects of the implementation of the BRT Expresso DF in 2014 in Brasília, which connected two peripheral districts with distinct socioeconomic profiles to the central business district (CBD) and reduced commuting times by 55%. Using detailed worker-level survey data and a difference-in-differences design, we find that residents of the low-income, transit-dependent served district experienced a 10.16% increase in hourly wages relative to a matched control group, while residents of the middle-income served district experienced no significant earnings gains. We find no robust effect on employment. We further show that exposed workers in the low-income district became more likely to work in the CBD after the BRT’s implementation, suggesting that improved access to higher-paying central jobs is a plausible mechanism behind the wage gains. Our findings indicate that the labor market benefits of BRT depend on local socioeconomic conditions and are larger in disadvantaged, transit-dependent neighborhoods, where such investments are more likely to reduce spatial mismatch.
The authors' abstract, as published at the source. Economics of Transportation, 2026 · DOI ↗
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Field: Transportation
TransportationSocial Sciences