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InWEnt News
Flood control in north and south
“Disasters do not occur only in Africa”
60 megacities
Bogotá’s red buses
InWEnt at the World Information Summit
1/2004 |
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[ InWEnt promotes innovative transport concept for cities ]
Bogotá’s red buses
Since their introduction in 2000, Bogotá’s big red Transmilenio buses have become a familiar aspect of the city. Transmilenio is an innovative transport concept based on a bus system that functions like a metro, with buses operating in special lanes and feeder services connecting Bogotá’s outlying districts to the downtown system. But Transmilenio is more than just a transport system. The concept also includes a newly created network of cycle paths as well as new parks and pedestrian precincts throughout the city. Other Latin American cities with a multi-million population, such as Lima or León de Guanajuato, are learning from the Colombian capital’s experience – a learning process which InWEnt promotes by arranging workshops and internships.
Transmilenio has become a model urban local transport solution because it can be planned and realised quickly, it is comparatively cheap and it is financed by both public and private sectors. The public sector is responsible for creating the infrastructure, issuing operating licences and monitoring the system. Private bus companies buy, run and maintain the buses. Transmilenio is a joint stock company whose capital goes into a trust fund to which neither the city administration nor bus companies have direct access. The fund is managed by a company which divides the profits among the bus companies in proportion to the number of kilometres their buses cover.
InWEnt’s involvement in the transport sector in Latin America dates back to 1998, when a Carl Duisberg Gesellschaft workshop in Lima provided groundwork support for the “Transport Management in Latin American Conurbations” project. Two years later, the Transmilenio system was presented in the “Urban Transport System Management” capacity development programme. Participants from Lima, in particular, were delighted. Hence InWEnt’s decision in 2002 to sponsor internships at Transmilenio in Bogotá for decision-makers in Lima’s municipal administration. In April 2003, all 39 members of the Lima city council voted unanimously in favour of the Transmilenio-style project “ProTransporte”, whereupon InWEnt sponsored another South-South exchange specifically for Lima transport companies. In the league of megacities with an eight-digit population, Lima is one of the few that does not have a functioning urban mass transportation system. The signs are that Bogotá’s successful model will also work in Lima.
In the Colombian capital, Transmilenio has helped develop new public space in the form of pedestrian precincts and cycle paths – as well as integrating the conflictive southern fringe of the city into the transport network. In addition, astute marketing has turned Transmilenio into a positive symbol for Bogotá, something the population identifies with. The degree of local popularity a transport system enjoys should not be underestimated as a factor for success. Since the year 2000, there have been numerous automobile-free Sundays in Bogotá to demonstrate to citizens the advantages of travelling by bus. The city’s flamboyant mayor, philosophy professor Antanas Mockus, went to work on a bike for a week to generate publicity for the newly built cycle paths. As a highly sensitive area of urban management, the transport sector is particularly reliant on visionary and charismatic leaders like Antanas Mockus and his predecessor Enrique Peñalosa – the fathers of the Transmilenio – to secure backing for innovative concepts.
Within the framework of InWEnt’s endeavours to create an international competence network supporting sustainable urban development through continuous exchange of experience, more cooperation with Transmilenio is desirable. And it should not be confined to Latin America. At present, InWEnt is helping to prepare the ground for talks between Bogotá and Capetown.
Dr. Berthold Volberg,
InWEnt division 4.03 “Urban Development,
Infrastructure and Communications”.
berthold.volberg@inwent.org
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