Sustainable mobility in Florianópolis: A commuter-based empirical investigation

Mobility in Brazil represents a crucial challenge for policy makers, given the economic, environmental and social problems that current patterns of transportation bear in densely populated urban areas. The research stems from the assumption that, since commuters play a key-role in driving the change towards innovative and environment-friendly mobility systems, a thorough understanding of the motives underpinning modal choice is a pre-requisite for the implementation of sound strategies and policies. The paper illustrates the preliminary results of an empirical investigation on modal choice on a sample of 436 commuters from the urban area of Florianópolis, Santa Catarina (Brazil). Policy implications for public authorities are presented, and avenues for future research are proposed.