Interdisciplinarity in Smart Systems Applied to Rural School Transport in Brazil

Renata Maria Abrantes Baracho, Mozart Joaquim Magalhăes Vidigal, Marcelo Franco Porto, Beatriz Couto

Interdisciplinarity applied to rural transport in Brazil through expert systems is the focus of this paper. Rural school transport is a challenge, considering the size of Brazil, the great diversity of biomes and insufficient infrastructure. Collaboration between areas by interdisciplinarity articulates individual knowledge through the object and by transdisciplinarity requires developing new knowledge, based on an individual area, going beyond and extrapolating with different criteria. The “Transcolar Rural” intelligent transport system has been developed at the UFMG School of Engineering to plan and manage rural school transport by optimizing routes and costs. The system is used in 13 states in Brazil, 500 municipalities and manages the daily transport of more than 400 thousand students in rural areas. Reducing transportation costs allows resources to be reallocated to other educational activities. The project highlights Brazil's limited resources, recognized by the government, to meet the population's health, education and transport priorities. Transparent information helps managers make decisions and supervise citizens, allowing both parties to determine priorities for resource allocation. The Project demonstrates how interdisciplinarity is effective for complex problems. The project comprehensively addresses the challenges of transporting children in Brazil by integrating technology, exact sciences and applied social sciences.

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