Bahia’s State Agency for Public Transport Regulation (Agerba) announced on 9 October that it will deploy additional inspectors to inter-city bus terminals and the Salvador–Itaparica ferry system between 8 and 13 October, coinciding with the Nossa Senhora Aparecida holiday. In the road sector, teams stationed at Salvador’s Nova Rodoviária will verify ticket pricing, vehicle maintenance logs and drivers’ duty hours. Operators exceeding authorised capacity or failing to respect Brazil’s E-Social labour-time reporting rules risk immediate suspension of departures. Agerba will also liaise with ANTT to monitor chartered coaches carrying tour groups from neighbouring states—an increasingly popular option among corporate off-sites and incentive trips. On the maritime side, concessionaire Internacional Travessias Salvador will run up to 54 ferry departures per day and expects to carry 99,000 passengers and 17,500 vehicles. A dedicated Agerba task-force will audit crowd-control measures, electronic ticketing systems and newly installed EMV contactless payment gates. Businesses shuttling staff or equipment to industrial sites on Itaparica Island should pre-book crossings and advise travellers to arrive 60 minutes before departure. For HR departments coordinating expatriate relocations or look-and-see visits in the Salvador metropolitan region, the heightened checks mean potential queues at bus and ferry terminals. Advisories suggest factoring an extra hour into itineraries and reminding travellers to carry photo ID, as random document verification is common during holiday operations. Agerba’s director of service quality, David Portinari, signalled that data collected this weekend will feed into a new statewide Mobility Dashboard, slated for launch in December, which will publish real-time performance indicators for regulated transport modes.
Source: SECOM Bahia
