General services assistant Núbia Sales Veras, 52 years old, resident of Cidade Oeste, a municipality in Goiás on the outskirts of the Federal District, uses public transport every day to cross the border with the country's capital and get to the company where she works, in Lago Sul, an elite neighborhood in Brasília, about 50 kilometers (km) from home. The distance, the cost of bus fares and the low quality of urban transport create limitations for her to access essential services in her life, such as treatment for fibromyalgia, a chronic syndrome that causes muscle and joint pain in various parts of the body. Related news: Zero tariffs on transport could be a new Bolsa Família, says study. Government studies feasibility of Zero Fare in public transport. Ministry of Cities awaits Treasury study on zero tariffs. "I've already missed appointments, I've already missed my treatment appointment at [hospital] Sarah [health institution focused on motor and neurological rehabilitation], all because of the bus delay and the ticket price," he told Agência Brasil. The report spoke to Núbia, last Friday afternoon (12), when she was passing by the Plano Piloto Bus Station, the main urban public transport terminal in the Federal District and metropolitan region, located in the center of the country's capital. Another problem reported by the worker is the cost of the ticket, which costs up to R$18 per day, a cost that limits her social life. Núbia states that her daughters lost opportunities because of the price of the ticket. Photo: Pedro Rafael Vilela/Agência Brasil "Many times I couldn't use it for culture, to put my daughters in a better school, but more distant, because of this ticket price", he stated. Núbia's experience, as well as that of thousands of people who use public road transport to travel around the country's large cities, reflects the conclusions of a new study developed by researchers linked to the Institute of Police Science at the University of Brasília (UnB). The article entitled Who can circulate? Zero tariffs, mobility and racial inequalities in access to the city and services points out that the cost of tariffs and the precariousness of transport, including overcrowding, insecurity and unpredictability, generate concrete obstacles to the continuity of health care, resulting in delayed diagnoses, missed scheduled appointments and losses in the preventive monitoring of chronic diseases. Structural racism The text, published in policy paper format (a type of technical report), highlights that prolonged travel times in metropolitan regions "act as severe aggravating factors for psychological distress, chronic stress and exhaustion, increasing anxiety and depression". These effects, according to research, tend to be particularly significant when observed from the perspective of racial inequalities. This is because the black population is overrepresented among lower-income groups, residing in peripheral territories and more dependent on public transport. "This means that economic and territorial barriers to mobility affect this population disproportionately, limiting their access to the city and its services", points out the study. Also at the Plano Piloto Bus Station, retired Helena Simão, a 72-year-old black woman, was walking slowly and with difficulty when she stopped to talk to the reporter, shortly before boarding the bus to get to Samambaia, an administrative region of the DF, about 30 kilometers from the center of the capital. She said that she has lived with osteoporosis for years, a disease that reduces the density and weakens the body's bones. Despite no longer paying the fare, as it is free for elderly people, Helena complains about the low number of buses in the outskirts. Helena Simão no longer pays for tickets, but regrets the low frequency of buses on the outskirts. Photo: Pedro Rafael Vilela/Agência Brasil "I no longer pay for transport, but it takes a long time to get there and I've already missed a doctor's appointment", said Helena.  Data from DataSUS cited in the research demonstrate, for example, that black women face twice the risk of maternal death compared to white women, "a disparity that is directly connected to the material and spatial restrictions on movement imposed by urban segregation." >>Book debates zero tariffs and urban mobility as quality of life Universal transport One of the focuses of the study is to demonstrate that removing the main economic barrier to public transport, which is the cost of the fare, through the implementation of universal zero fare, has the potential to act as a structuring policy to reduce inequalities, going far beyond a simple public transport measure. "It has the potential to transform society's relationship with a public policy, just like the Unified Health System (SUS) provided, but now from the point of view of transport", observes Paíque Duques Santarém, researcher at UnB (University of Brasília) and one of the authors of the article. This full exemption from the cost of the tariff, in the researchers' analysis, would constitute a strategic tool to guarantee effective access to public equipment, ensure the continuity of therapeutic care and "definitively tension the historical patterns of territorial and racial exclusion that fragment Brazilian cities". In a previous study, the same research group involved in the project on zero tariffs and their possibilities for expansion in Brazil points out that the implementation of free public transport in the 27 Brazilian capitals would also represent an injection of R$60.3 billion annually into the country's economy and could have an effect similar to that of Bolsa Família.