Measuring social effective speed to improve sustainable mobility policies in developing countries.

• Motorized modes had lower effective speed than non-motorized modes. • Social effective speed (SES) could reduce the externalities of private vehicle use. • SES considers external costs, including environmental, social, and economic costs. • Using social effective speed costs could improve sustainable mobility policies. • This money is important for developing countries that often have lack of resources. Over the last few decades, many developing countries have experienced car fleet growth, which has contributed to congestion, increased travel times, and deteriorated public transport reliability and punctuality. However, alternatives to urban mobility can be found by creating policies to stimulate sustainable transportation modes with equal opportunities for all citizens. In this paper, measures of social effective speeds are presented to improve sustainable urban mobility policies in developing countries. Data from the 2018 Origin-Destination Survey of the Metropolitan Region of Recife (Brazil) were used to estimate social effective speeds. The results showed that motorized modes had lower effective speed than non-motorized modes. In addition, total external costs were $2 billion USD per year. The social effective speed will be valuable if inserted in sustainable urban mobility policies in developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]