The City of São Paulo, through the Municipal Government and Transport Mobility departments, opened a public consultation in August to promote the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) project for 31 urban bus terminals, linked to the Municipality's Urban Public Transport System.

The bidding notice states that the company that wins the public tender will be responsible for the administration, maintenance, conservation, commercial exploitation and requalification of the spaces, with the terminals covering the entire operational area, including the roads, platforms, administrative areas, bathrooms, kiosks and other facilities intended for users.

In the economic exploration of this project, the concessionaires will be able to develop real estate projects on these public lands, carrying out residential and commercial constructions in the airspace of the terminals.

The project will be subject to an international competition, in which companies and funds not established in Brazil will be able to submit proposals. The concession contract will be valid for 30 years and involves, in addition to the 31 urban bus terminals, among others.

The area of the Municipality of São Paulo was divided into three lots: northwest, south and east. It will be possible for the same bidder to be declared the winner in more than one area of the Municipality, provided that he or she is the only interested party to submit a proposal for that group of terminals. The criterion for ranking the proposals will be the lowest value of the consideration, the remuneration to be paid by the Municipality of São Paulo on a monthly basis to the future incumbent.

Furthermore, according to the City Hall, the concession represents a current operating cost (OPEX) of approximately R$20.86 million per month. The average number of passengers circulating through these public structures is 900,000 per day, which transforms these spaces into regional hubs and vectors of urban development, attractive to commerce and service providers, according to the Strategic Master Plan of the City of São Paulo.

It is important to emphasize that this Public-Private Partnership is an administrative partnership and, therefore, the charging of fares to direct users of municipal public transportation will not be permitted. Remuneration depends on regular contributions of budgetary resources from the government, which are linked to the investments provided for in the contract and occur as the investments are made. Relevant alternative revenues may be obtained from the real estate exploitation of the buildings to be constructed.

Furthermore, upon the expiration of the contractual term, the assets will be reverted to the municipal patrimony, considering that the private partner will be compensated for those not yet amortized or depreciated, which have been carried out with the objective of guaranteeing the continuity of the service granted.

The concession of the bus terminals in São Paulo is a project that has been designed since 2017 to involve not only the terminal properties, but a radius of 600 meters around them, configuring an urban project to be approved through an Urban Intervention Project, which aims to gather and articulate the technical studies necessary to promote urban planning and restructuring in underutilized areas with potential for transformation in the Municipality of São Paulo.

The concession of the terminals corresponds to what the São Paulo Master Plan characterizes as an urban concession, which can be carried out to implement an Urban Intervention Project prepared by the Public Authority.

In such projects, the concessionaire may obtain its remuneration through the exploitation of land, construction potential to be used in the project, buildings intended for private use resulting from the work carried out, income derived from the exploitation of public spaces or additional revenues.

Interested parties may consult the draft documents on the website Municipal Government Secretariat.