MOTOBOYS : THE VISIBLE URBAN FACE OF CYBERSPACE IN SÃO PAULO CITY

Transcription

1 1 MOTOBOYS : THE VISIBLE URBAN FACE OF CYBERSPACE IN SÃO PAULO CITY Eduardo Sampaio Nardelli Θ Abstract Driving carelessly through the streets of the city, disrespecting traffic lights, frightening drivers and pedestrians and causing daily accidents in which they are always the main victim often fatal everyday about 100 thousand motoboys the word Brazilian people use to call the courier who delivers locally by motorcycle the services and goods bought by internet - become a kind of urban nuisance in the streets of São Paulo. Their origin and growth coincide with the introduction and expansion of internet access in Brazil and its insertion in the globalization trend. Indeed if we compare the data related to the beginning and the development of this delivery service in the city of São Paulo with the data of the opening of Brazil s economy and the introduction and growth of internet access in the country, we realize the relationship between these different facts such as cause and consequence. A provoking relationship which this paper intends to show, comparing statistical data and specific studies that demonstrate the complexity of the introduction and the development of Information and Communications Technologies ICT - in the context of cultural, social and economic reality of taking-off countries where most often this latest development creates a kind of unsuspected pitfall when we try to update public resources in order to improve the quality of urban life. Keywords: internet, information and communication technologies, e-commerce, town planning, taking-off countries, globalization Θ Charles C Vincent, arquiteto e doutor pela FAUUSP, pesquisador vice-líder do grupo de pesquisa Teoria e Projeto na Era Digital. Investiga as mudanças de paradigma em projeto e design advindas da progressiva prevalência de mídias e ferramentas digitais. Tem trabalhos publicados em congressos do Design Research Society e SIGraDi Sociedad Iberoamericana de Grafica Digital e outros. Θ Eduardo Sampaio Nardelli, arquiteto, mestre e doutor pela FAU Mackenzie, pesquisador líder do grupo de pesquisa Teoria e Projeto na Era Digital. Investiga desde a década de 90 as mudanças de paradigma em projeto advindas da prevalência de mídias e ferramentas digitais. É secretário executivo da SIGraDi e tem inúmeros trabalhos publicados na revista AU, congressos SIGraDi, ecaade e outros.

2 2 1 Introduction In the early 90s, talking about being digital, Negroponte (1995) realized the emerging migration of the traditional media to digital technology. At the same time, Mitchel (1995) established an interesting parallel between the traditional urban scenery and the new resources provided by Information and Communication Technologies ICTs, suggesting that most urban daily functions would be done in the near future through digital tools linked in a complex network which he called cyberspace. Indeed, in the recent past we have seen the confirmation of these prophecies which have deeply transformed the behavior of the societies where they have been introduced and there is no doubt that this process has brought them several advantages, especially those referring to e-business development in terms of commerce and services through cyberspace. However, with every development an unexpected new contradiction might result which sometimes becomes really dramatic, notably if the technological evolution happens where the basic infra-structure is not complete and/or well balanced and disseminated, such as occurs in taking-off countries. This is the case of an urban phenomenon which has been happening in the city of São Paulo in recent years and that became a case of public health hazard as shown by the data of the Emergency Service of São Paulo s Clinicas Hospital the most important public hospital in Brazil originated by the popularization of e-commerce and e-service in the city of São Paulo: the motoboys the word Brazilian people use to call the courier who delivers locally by motorcycle the services and goods bought through internet: an essential piece at the final end of this complex digital network because of the precarious system of public transportation of São Paulo. Driving carelessly through the streets, disrespecting traffic lights, frightening drivers and pedestrians and causing daily accidents in which they are always the main victims often fatal about 100 thousand motoboys become a kind of urban nuisance in the streets of São Paulo whose origin and growth coincides with the introduction and expansion of internet access in Brazil and its insertion in the globalization trend. Indeed, if we compare the data related to the starting and development of this delivery service in the city of São Paulo with the data of the opening of Brazil s economy and the introduction and growth of internet access in the country we realize the relationship between these different facts such as cause and consequence. A provoking relationship which is shown, demonstrating the complexity of the introduction and development of Information and Communications Technologies in the context of cultural, social and economic reality of taking-off countries where, most often, this latest development creates a kind of unsuspected pitfall when we try to update public resources in order to improve the quality of urban life.

3 3 Figure 1: The motoboy working 2 Nuisance or public health hazard? According to CET Companhia de Engenharia de Tráfego de São Paulo the agency responsible for traffic control in São Paulo, last year 380 motoboys died in the city because of traffic accidents. More than one per day representing an increase of around 10% compared to the same data in 2005, when 345 motoboys died in the same circumstances (Zonta, 2006). Nowadays, 60% of the high complexity cases of the Orthopedic Center of Clinicas Hospital in São Paulo are linked to people injured by motorcycle accidents corresponding to an estimated cost of around R$ 4,5 million about US$ 2,25 million - per year, spent in assisting the motorcyclists. To these figures we should to add others referring to the victims that died on the accident site - which are not written up in the emergency service records of the hospitals - and the regional cases, which can range from around R$ 521 to R$ 200 thousand (US$260 to US$100 thousand) each one, according to the complexity of the treatments. These very impressive figures indicate to the director of the Emergency Service of São Paulo Clinicas Hospital, Dr. Renato S. Poggetti, that the motoboys have become a real public health hazard in the city of São Paulo.

4 4 3 Through the Rear-View Mirror But who are those people? To answer this question the Urban Anthropology Center of Universidade de São Paulo N.A.U. USP - in a case study called Through the Rear-View Mirror (the motorcycle equipment) driven by the researchers Augusto Stiel Neto, João Mutaf and Silvia Avlasevicius, where they deciphered the codes, symbols and others characteristics of the motoboys behavior, defining them as a new professional category whose anthropological profile they drew up and which related to the environment where motoboys work. Thus, according to the case study motoboys are a complex phenomenon involving different categories linked to their job description. First of all, it is necessary to separate the amateur motorcyclists from those who work as a courier using a motorcycle. In this professional category, another class can be identified considering age and time on the job, which might mean having a customer portfolio that may provide a stable income. There is also the status factor because there are motoboys who use their own vehicle working regular hours as a company employee and having a stable job. They are the elite of the profession. On the other hand, there are those who work for delivery companies, the so called motocargo and they are the majority. These delivery companies are small enterprises generally owned by a former motoboy and eventually legalized, submitting to State regulation and taxes, but usually in conflict with Unions because of their carelessness with workers rights, especially when there are accidents. Finally, there is a sub-category of motoboys who work on their own using their vehicles and public spaces, such as squares or even a chair on the sidewalk close to a public telephone box, to contact their eventual clients. They are outside the law and far from tax regulations. They form the majority of the younger motoboys and these are not by chance the bulk of those involved in traffic accidents, even the fatal ones, according to the local data of the first semester of 2005 which shows that about 70% of the fatal victims of accidents in that period were in 14 to 30 year old range. Known as bad boys they are discriminated even by their peers because they contribute to the bad image motoboys have. An image that has been built by class prejudice and the hard disrespect for simple citizenship rules as careless driving in the streets of the city and the disdain for crosswalks and, sometimes, because of criminal acts like the death of Marcelo Frommer a famous singer of the Titãs Group, an icon of local rock bands - under the wheels of a motoboy s motorcycle. Despite this bad image, they are gradually being accepted by society which recognizes the importance of their work and, according to the N.A.U. - USP case study, new open spaces for

5 5 motoboys have been incorporated to newer buildings, such as parking places for their vehicles, according to the necessities of contemporary reality, modeled under the intensive application of Information and Communication Technologies, which has revolutionized people s behavior and sometimes needs to find a correlation of its resources in real space configuration. Figure 2: Motoboys in the traffic jam 4 ICTs and new urban paradigms Where are those people coming from? According to the Website Carga Urbana - a private organization focused on urban cargo issues - the origin of motoboys can be traced to twenty years ago, when traffic jams increased in the city of São Paulo in parallel to its precarious system of public transportation, indicating the convenience of motorcycle utilization to face the difficulty of delivering documents in the central area of the city. They estimate that in 1990 there were about 20 thousand motoboys in São Paulo, almost invisible to the people and incapable of generating important conflicts with other vehicles in the streets of a city of 10 million inhabitants.

6 6 However, suddenly, the demand for this kind of service increased exponentially and beside documents they started to deliver small objects like food, books, medicines and bank correspondence. A strong and spontaneous growth which happened without any public administration regulation until it reached an unbearable level. And what is very interesting in that growth is that it happened in parallel to special transformations in the social and economical environment of Brazil: the insertion of the country in the globalization trend which determined a broad re-engineering of companies that generated significant unemployment, especially for the less trained workers and the boom of rapid delivery services demand as a consequence of improvements in the public telecommunications service with the expansion of the telephone network, the starting of mobile services and the introduction of internet and its World Wide Web interface. Unemployment Rate, by Level of Education São Paulo City Percentage (%) Year Illiterate Incomplete Basic School Complete Basic School and Incomplete High school Complete High School and Incomplete College Complete College Total ,3 13,5 12,9 7,4 4,8 11, ,3 11,1 9,7 6,7 3,1 9, ,0 10,8 9,7 6,1 2,9 8, ,9 11,0 10,0 6,3 2,7 9, ,9 9,9 10,0 4,9 3,0 8, ,0 11,9 11,3 6,9 3,1 9, ,0 13,1 12,9 7,4 4,0 10, ,3 17,6 16,2 10,6 4,7 14, ,9 16,9 16,3 9,4 4,2 13, ,3 16,0 16,6 10,2 4,4 13, ,3 15,4 15,1 9,7 4,3 12, ,7 16,8 18,4 11,4 4,7 14, ,1 18,0 19,4 11,6 5,0 14, ,0 20,2 22,9 14,2 4,9 17, ,9 20,8 24,6 15,1 5,9 17, ,7 18,7 22,0 14,0 5,7 16, ,5 17,8 22,5 14,7 5,7 16, ,0 19,3 24,2 17,1 6,7 17, ,2 20,0 26,5 18,2 7,1 18, (Jan. to May) (1) - 20,4 28,6 19,8 7,6 19,7 Source: SEP. Convênio Seade-Dieese. Pesquisa de Emprego e Desemprego.

7 7 This is what we can see in the following table elaborated by SEADE Foundation, corresponding to the Unemployment Rate during the period of 1985 to 2004: Table 1: Unemployment Rate, by Level of Education - SEP. Convênio Seade-Dieese. Pesquisa de Emprego e Desemprego. According to this table, we realize that since 1991 unemployment started to grow in a continuous manner especially in the lower layer of less instructed people (Incomplete Basic and High School), exactly at the same period when the country started its process of globalization. On the other hand while there were about 2.5 million Web users in Brazil in 1999, in the year after there were about 4.7 million, increasing to 5.9 million in 2001 (Nardelli, 2003) and so on until the end of 2005 with 12.2 million users, an increase of 12,40 % over the prior year Now, there are about 16,3 million Brazilian Web users, 33,60% over 2005 which demonstrates that the increasing trend is still growing in geometric progression, and if we consider that this universe represents only 14,49% of Brazilian homes, it is easy to see that there is a wide range for continuous expansion (Comitê Gestor da Internet no Brasil, 2006). It is remarkable that 22,90% of those homes with internet access are located in the State of São Paulo and 19,82% of them are within the Metropolitan Region of São Paulo, the most important field for motoboys rat race And it is still remarkable, in order to support our hypothesis, that about 47,10% of those internet users declare they use the Web to search for goods and services which, of course, will be delivered by motoboys. Thus, many uneducated people leave their regular jobs finding in the courier services an alternative occupation and then, the paradox is built: insofar as the benefit of cyberspace spreads among the population and increases the demand for courier services the more the chaotic traffic jam in São Paulo increases too. So, an unexpected pitfall: the invisible virtual world of digital technology should match the actual infra-structure of the real one, but it is not there 5 Findings In the previous paragraphs we demonstrated how the insertion of Brazil in the globalization process and the parallel introduction of Information and Communication Technologies generated an unsuspected nuisance in the urban life in the city of São Paulo, which rapidly became a real public health hazard known as motoboys the courier who uses a motorcycle to deliver goods and services bought through cyberspace. We identified the cause of that phenomenon in the combination of the unemployment in uneducated people split from their regular jobs because of the improvement of company s

8 8 productivity generated by the globalization process and the increase of courier services demand generated by the expansion of the Brazilian telecommunication services, especially the internet. Indeed, as we have seen, the growth of this alternative occupation had an expansion boom after the middle of the nineties coinciding with the introduction of the World Wide Web in Brazil and it was not matched by the necessary infra-structure in terms of public transportation in the city of São Paulo to support its activity. A paradox was established: on the one hand the growth of courier services demand supplied by motoboys, most of them coming from uneducated background and on the other hand the inadequacy of the public transportation infra-structure. This paradox started an impressive conflict between motoboys and regular drivers and pedestrians in the streets of São Paulo, where the main and often fatal victims are those careless couriers. Thus, the increased benefits of cyberspace spreading among the population increasing the demand for courier services, the more chaotic becomes the traffic jam in São Paulo. Nevertheless, in spite of the bad image of motoboys, they have gradually been accepted by society which is recognizing the importance of their work and is trying to find solutions to this new reality, like open spaces for motoboys in the newer buildings, such as parking space for their motorcycles. The local government is also trying to regulate this activity in order to protect the motoboys and by extension, the citizens who are threatened by their careless behavior. But, this is not the heart of the matter Actually the motoboys issue is not only related to the careless behavior in traffic - although it should be, because Brazilian society accepts and to some extent emulates this behavioral deviation. Indeed, this issue is directly related to the improvement of goods and services delivery channels which must be created and/or improved in the city by special public policies to support the increase of Information and Communication Technologies in the daily life of São Paulo. And certainly the best way for this would be the improvement of public transportation service in order to avoid the same mistake of the beginning of last century, when the local public transportation policies focused on the individual rather than the public, starting to build the background of the current chaotic traffic in the city. If there was an expanded Underground connected to a good complementary public surface transportation, the couriers and their goods and services could get efficiently to every place of the city without this risky journey that the motoboys now face. This new paradox brought by motoboys, would perhaps be a great opportunity to reorganize the local transportation infra-structure under the light of the Information and

9 9 Communication Technologies development because, actually, they are the visible urban face of cyberspace in São Paulo. References Comitê Gestor da Internet no Brasil - TIC Domicílios e Usuários Available by www in URL - acesso em 25/04/07 - access on 04/25/07 Mitchell, William J..City of Bits, space, place, and the infoban. Cambridge: The MIT Press, Nardelli, Stela Lachtermacher Portais Verticais, a informação segmentada no complexo mundo da Internet - Dissertação de Mestrado Escola de Comunicações e Artes da Universidade de São Paulo, Negroponte, Nicholas. A vida digital. Tradução: Sérgio Tellaroli; Supervisão Técnica: Ricardo Rangel. São Paulo: Cia. Das Letras, Neto, Stiel et alli. Pelo Espelho Retrovisor (on-line) in: N.A.U. Núcleo de Antropologia Urbana. Universidade de São Paulo - Available by www in URL - access on 03/11/2006 Zonta, Natália. Sem punição, motoboys fazem pouco das regras. O Estado de S.Paulo 4 /03/2006, p. C3.