As the BRICS grouping expands into BRICS+, researchers are asking what the enlarged club of emerging economies actually means for the way cities in the Global South build and govern smart transport. A new open-access study published in the journal City and Built Environment argues that the answer is not a single unified regime. Instead, the expanded bloc offers what the authors call a potential governance space in which very different national models of smart urban mobility can be compared, exchanged and selectively adapted.
Using structured, focused comparative policy analysis of publicly available policy documents, legal instruments, institutional reports and secondary literature, the researchers examined five countries: China, India, Brazil, the United Arab Emirates and Indonesia. The corpus covered material published or available between 2012 and 2026, spanning electric mobility, smart city governance, data protection, digital government, infrastructure financing, public transport electrification and autonomous mobility.
The timing is significant. South Africa joined the original BRIC grouping in 2010, and in 2024 the group grew further with the addition of Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates, while Indonesia became a full member in January 2025. Yet the authors are careful to stress that BRICS+ remains a loose intergovernmental forum rather than a binding supranational organization. It has no dedicated urban transport institution, no enforcement mechanism and no unified smart mobility mandate. The article explicitly does not claim that BRICS+ institutional mechanisms have materially shaped smart mobility outcomes on the ground; its contribution is an emerging frame for comparing governance models and identifying policy tensions.
The comparison reveals five distinct configurations. China represents a state-led, technology-scale model in which the New Energy Vehicle Industry Development Plan 2021–2035 ties electric vehicle development to industrial upgrading, infrastructure expansion and international competitiveness. Smart mobility there is part of a broader industry and technology strategy, and the state’s capacity to coordinate national policy, local experimentation, manufacturing, charging infrastructure and public investment enables rapid roll-out. The Personal Information Protection Law provides a legal basis for personal data protection, but the approach remains characterized by strong state power in data governance, raising questions about surveillance, platform concentration and the trade-off between efficiency and individual autonomy.
India’s pathway rests on digital public infrastructure combined with federal experimentation. The DataSmart Cities Strategy promotes people, process and platform arrangements for data-driven urban governance, while the Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023 adds a legal dimension and the PM E-DRIVE scheme promotes electric buses, vehicles and charging infrastructure. The study frames India as both a model of democratic experimentation and a cautionary case: federalism permits state and city innovation but produces uneven implementation, with smart mobility projects varying widely across metropolitan areas depending on local capacity, finances and political leadership.
Brazil offers a third configuration grounded in urban rights rather than technology. Law No. 12.587/2012, the National Urban Mobility Policy, emphasizes integration across transport modes, public transport, non-motorized mobility and accessibility, while the Brazilian Charter for Smart Cities connects smart urbanism to democratic governance, digital inclusion and local capacity. The authors stress that Brazil’s strength lies not in demonstrated inclusive outcomes but in how it frames smart mobility through social inclusion and the right to public transport, exposing the persistent gap between policy ambition and implementation capacity in financing, metropolitan coordination and fleet renewal.
The United Arab Emirates emerges as a high-capacity innovation laboratory. Its agenda spans electric vehicle infrastructure, autonomous transport, smart roads, AI-enabled services and smart city pilots, with Dubai framing autonomous mobility within a broader urban competitiveness strategy. Strong fiscal capacity, centralized planning and regulatory agility enable rapid testing of new technologies. But the study is blunt about transferability: the UAE model is not replicable for Global South cities with informal transport systems, limited budgets and fragmented metropolitan governance. Its value lies in asking which mechanisms, such as regulatory sandboxes or data-sharing rules, can be adapted elsewhere without reproducing high-capital, elite-oriented mobility systems.
Indonesia, the first Southeast Asian full member, serves as an ASEAN bridge case. Presidential Regulation No. 55/2019 established the regulatory basis for accelerating battery electric vehicle deployment, later amended by Regulation No. 79/2023, and Law No. 27/2022 on Personal Data Protection provides a broader digital governance foundation. Jakarta and other metropolitan areas face congestion, public transport integration, platform regulation and urban data governance challenges. The authors see Indonesia’s relevance in the intersection of ASEAN urbanization, battery supply-chain geopolitics and development finance, while warning that the main danger is an EV industrial policy that remains car-centric and neglects public transport access.
Beyond the case studies, the analysis carries broader warnings about how smart mobility is evaluated. Drawing on transport justice scholarship, the authors argue that mobility systems should be judged by how they distribute access and opportunity, not simply by how efficiently they move vehicles or data. Without strong governance, smart mobility risks deepening the dominance of private platforms, intensifying surveillance, increasing social exclusion and replicating existing inequalities. Digital sovereignty itself contains internal tensions: strong state control can coordinate infrastructure and ensure strategic autonomy but can also enable surveillance, while corporate platform control can accelerate innovation but invites data extraction and regulatory dependence.
The study proposes concrete directions. BRICS+ cooperation should be framed by public value rather than technology procurement, with projects evaluated on accessibility, affordability, safety, emissions reduction, service integration and privacy protection. The authors suggest common principles on urban mobility data governance, a dedicated New Development Bank financing window for smart and sustainable urban mobility, and a city-level knowledge platform for South-South learning. They are careful to describe the New Development Bank as a potential financing channel rather than proven evidence of implementation. The authors also acknowledge their limitations: the analysis relies on documentary evidence, distinguishes policy ambition from implementation evidence, and should be read as an interpretive tool for comparative policy analysis, not as proof of causal effects or implementation success.
Subject of Research: Comparative governance of smart urban mobility, digital sovereignty and infrastructure financing across five BRICS+ countries
Article Title: BRICS+ smart mobility governance: digital sovereignty and infrastructure financing for urban transport innovation in the Global South
Article References: Hanura, M., Setiyaningsih, D., & Yuniningsih, T. (2026). BRICS+ smart mobility governance: digital sovereignty and infrastructure financing for urban transport innovation in the Global South. City and Built Environment, 4(1), Article 19. https://doi.org/10.1007/s44213-026-00084-9
Image Credits: AI Generated
DOI: 10.1007/s44213-026-00084-9
Keywords: BRICS+, smart mobility, digital sovereignty, infrastructure finance, urban transport, Global South, electric vehicles, data governance, New Development Bank, South-South cooperation, transport justice, comparative policy analysis
News Source: Courtney Benton. (October 28, 2026). Five Models, No Single Blueprint: How BRICS+ Nations Govern Smart Urban Mobility. Scienmag.
