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Scaling Rio de Janeiro’s BRT for 6x Fleet Growth

How Mobi-Rio used Optibus Planning and Scheduling to rebuild their Bus Rapid Transit system and scale the fleet, ridership, and driver staff.

Client

Mobi-Rio BRT

Profile

Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) operator

Fleet Size

731 buses

Annual Passenger Trips

168,000,000

Products

Planning, Scheduling

Location

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

509%

Fleet growth

133%

Daily ridership increase

98%

On-time performance

Overview

Mobi-Rio is the operator of Rio de Janeiro’s Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) service, one of Brazil’s largest public transportation systems. To rebuild and scale the BRT in the face of economic and post-pandemic challenges, Mobi-Rio implemented Optibus to optimize 9,000 daily trips and improve management for 1,900 drivers. Through better crew and vehicle allocation, Mobi-Rio scaled their fleet from 120 to 731 buses, added six new depots, and achieved 98% on-time performance as daily ridership doubled.

"Optibus maintains our service quality, even as our network scales and becomes more complex. Without Optibus, it would be impossible to plan and adjust operations this efficiently."

Diego Mateus da Silva, Director of Planning and Operations

Challenge

Rio de Janeiro’s BRT faced setbacks due to economic crises and the COVID-19 pandemic. Daily service was cut from 400 to 120 buses and daily ridership fell by 50%, from 400,000 to 200,000.

Mobi-Rio needed to rebuild their operation and optimize driver and vehicle allocation, while massively scaling their network to integrate a new corridor (Transbrasil), six new depot locations, hundreds of new vehicles, and more than a thousand new drivers.

Resources needed to be efficiently allocated to support increased daily ridership, including demand as a result of citywide mega-events (Rock in Rio, Web Summit, and Bienal do Livro) that attract hundreds of thousands of visitors to the city.

"We are making adjustments in record time. Previously, it took us weeks to implement a plan. Now, we do it in days."

Alexandre Roberto Cruz Brito, Planning Supervisor

Solution

Mobi-Rio implemented Optibus Planning and Scheduling to power a coordinated, responsive BRT operation that can:

React rapidly to daily demand fluctuations resulting from large-scale events, while maintaining service frequency, punctuality, and passenger satisfaction.
Monitor service and performance and adjust in real time.
Optimize driver and vehicle allocation, reducing idle mileage and costs.
Plan services faster, thanks to more advanced, cloud-native tools and workflows.

"Service quality has improved dramatically. Passengers say that service is too punctual now."

Diego Mateus da Silva, Director of Planning and Operations

Results

With Optibus, Mobi-Rio achieved the following improvements for Rio de Janeiro’s BRT network:

Faster planning: From fourteen to three days (80% time savings).
Scaled operations alongside unprecedented growth: Oversaw one of the operation’s largest service expansions, growing the fleet from 120 to 731 buses (+509%), adding six new depot locations, and launching a new BRT corridor (Transbrasil) without service or operational disruptions through optimized crew and vehicle scheduling.
On-time services for more passengers: Daily ridership on Rio’s BRT network increased by 133%, from 200k to 466k passengers. With Optibus, Mobi-Rio was able to seamlessly manage the growth, increasing service frequency to match demand. Services are meeting compliance standards and running at 98% on-time performance.
Operational insights: Vehicle health has improved. Optibus’ KPI dashboard brings visibility to the related cost savings and improvements in cost per kilometer, so that Mobi-Rio can better understand expenses and savings.
Driver management: Mobi-Rio’s driver staff grew from 350 to 1,900 as a result of service expansions. More efficient scheduling means Mobi-Rio can smoothly manage the growth and scale without disrupting driver operations.