International Jury Grand Prize

For their feature on Taxi-Mopeds in Franca
Team: Caio Cavechini, Francisco de Souza, Ivan Paganotti
Brazil – Universidad de São Paulo

Subject: completing the range of public transport in certain cities,
taxi-mopeds as generators of jobs.

Download their feature in PDF format in english version.
Download their feature in PDF format in portuguese version.

Our winners this year, who have worked hard on both the form and content of their original subject, are Brazilian. The taxi-mopeds feature met with unanimous approval from the Jury International, mainly because of its multidimensional approach. The students highlighted a recent phenomenon that raises new questions, without claiming to present a miracle solution.

Their subject reflects one aspect of urban mobility as a whole and their explanations are supported by precise data, appropriate graphics, a fluent style and a video which complements their articles without repetition. The feature is balanced, looking at different perspectives (how the system works, economic and social aspect, political choices...), alternating between analyses and interviews, using clear and explicit iconography. The feature take full account of the concept of intermodality without neglecting the human dimension of the subject.

It is a good piece of investigative journalism which also provides interesting video footage in which the students have filmed and interviewed all the stakeholders, whether institutions, users or drivers of taxi-mopeds.

”The first prize winner on the Mototaxis is showing in an excellent, exciting and highly readable way the complexity of the urban mobility problem in a Brazilian city burdened by unemployment, poverty, lack of infrastructure and public transport and problems of security, crime and drugs. From below emerges in an informal way the mototaxi as a cheap means of public transport, creating new problems of regulation for the municipality, new competition for the ordinary taxi drivers, and stigmatization for the mototaxi drivers themselves due to drug-dealer transport. This is sociological journalism at its very best showing how actors act, for better or worse, to make mobility in the city.” Niels Albertsen Aarhus School of Architecture.