A considerable amount of thought is going into the public transport systems of Buenos Aires, and they are winning recognition for their successes and their proposals.

As with all cities in these cash strapped times of burgeoning obesity, much of the effort is in promoting walking and cycling. Happily, the bus system is also attracting investment, for with highways 16+ lanes across cutting through great swathes of the city, there is room to re-plan things relatively cheaply to the considerable benefit of buses and the urban realm.

As in any city, the newly arrived traveller might resort to taxis to shuttle them around an unfamiliar and, in a city with taxis as cheap and plentiful as Buenos Aires, all the more so.  But after an experience of some unpleasantness on the trip from the airport (please don’t hire Raoul sporting the official-looking taxi sign) the buses were the preferred option from the outset.

The Buenos Aires buses are, shall we say, dynamic.

To someone bought up on red-colour consistency and the sedate, cruise ship manners of London buses, the multi-branded, roaring speed boats of the Buenos Aires colectivo system are a visual overdose of mind-numbing complexity.
 
But while the tradition, coordination and clarity inherent in London’s way of operating as a single bus provider appears sensible and comforting, there is evidence in Buenos Aires that this is not the only way, and that dispersing the system into the hands of a myriad of competing companies does not have to increase or complicate fares, and does not have to reduce efficiency or the quality of service.

Of course, there are consequent differences in the appearance, age and quality of the colectivos, there are differences in the frequency of their arrival, and there are near-unfathomable differences in the routes they take. A timetable of sorts is available but effectively non-existent - the frequency is generally sufficient to make such matters irrelevant - and, with a driving style that ensures the accelerator is flat to the floor, being ahead of schedule becomes a good thing once again.
 
On some routes the drivers have decorated their charges, suggesting there is also personal ownership in the colectivos – and that too might explain the speed with which they course the routes and the congenial manner with which even stumbling Spanish speakers are welcomed aboard.

And despite, or perhaps because of the myriad of privateers, the cost of the journeys is ridiculously low, but apparently largely unsubsidized. The routes are popular, and the individual companies make money. The ticketing is centralized, making it consistent and simple for the passengers; rightly leaving the complexity of revenue distribution for Buenos Aires and the multiple owners to sort out.
 
And together they use the SUBE card, the sole public transport currency, which can be topped up conveniently in the plentiful small convenience stores as well as the railway stations, and also gives access to the underground and overground trains - which are equally excellent but understandably less extensive.

While the signage on the colectivos shouts for your attention in the style of American graffiti, that at the bus stops is restrained to nigh-invisibility.  To an eye trained on post mounted roundels and big red moving billboards, maximising the colour spectrum and minimising the passenger information would seem counterproductive.  But where it all appears a little chaotic, navigation is much simplified by the application of a decent application, in this case Google Maps.  

And the real enlightenment for me is that such an application not only helps you navigate the system, it also enables the flexibility of the Buenos Aires public transport business model.

There is enough evidence in recent supply chain difficulties and rising utility costs to suggest that the European model, that engages large private multi-national organisations to operate its infrastructure, could and probably should be reconfigured to employ and manage numerous local providers and that this would be no bad thing.

In the Buenos Aires model what needs to be centralized to satisfy the passengers - fares, operating principles, licencing controls - is also flexibly commercialized to enable a wider range of business sizes to participate and compete in the public transport market. A quality App dispenses with the need for continuity of branding, frequency, timetabling, ride quality, staffing structures and the like, in much the same way as is now being widely operated in the taxi market. In the Buenos Aires those matters are all handed back to the operators and governed by their acceptability to the passengers.

Of course, Google is another private multi-national, reliance on which should equally make us all a little wary. There is a Buenos Aires Como Llego App that will tell you about the colectivos, but City backed maps have a tendency to be clunky and unintuitive, focusing on the stops of which you don’t know the name unless you know the name, rather than the things and places of interest that they serve. Como Llego is no different. It would seem money well spent for City authorities to enhance these Apps rather than spending effort on rolling out ‘real-time’ indicators and the like.

And the future?

Buenos Aires’ ambitions to improve the colectivos system still further are laudable, not for their cost but for their simplicity.

Already, Avenida 9 De Julio, which when last I was in Buenos Aires comprised a 20-lane drag race, now has a loosely guided bus route along its axis taking up half of its width and 3km of its length.  The perilously long pedestrian crossings have been replaced with shorter hops between safety reserves and, together with the new linear planting zones, the whole urban experience is made more traffic efficient, less dangerous, and visually more inviting. 

Avenida 9 De Julio is the first section of an emerging BRT ‘Metrobus’ programme and, thanks to the 20C oversizing of other Buenos Aires through-roads, there are now other completed sections and further opportunities for extending the BRT along the primary city corridors as funds allow.

Buenos Aires also has the more challenging ambition to reduce the direct environmental impact of their public transport. The colectivos are generally not young, and are a significant perpetrator of the city’s CO2 problems. EV is seen to be the answer and a new financing model is actively being sought. It seems to me that this change in any big city with a struggling economy will be a slow evolution achieved by gradual implementation, and that in Buenos Aires the presence of a multitude of smaller operators may make the process an easier one to negotiate and implement.
 
And ultimately, will all this attract people out of cars? Well, it did me.