Bus transport in Buenos Aires. Paradoxical experiences to 10 years of revision

ANDREA GUTIÉRREZ

Journal of Transport Geography

Elsevier

Año: 2010

0966-6923

Buenos Aires offers a very particular combination of situations that describe it as an interesting case to capture evidence. Bus public transport in Buenos Aires reknown abroad for its high level of service, coverage and efficiency under indirect operational conditions in a situation of multiple ownership and lack of subsidy. It also offered the experience of enterprise maturity built from associations of single operators. As in other parts of the world, in the 90´s it was subject to a regulatory revision. It was not carried out within the usual framework as the majority of international cases, because at the moment of its implementation the service had a good performance without requiring subsidies. Basically it focuses to encourage technical improvements in the operation with the introduction of minor alterations to the existing regulations, supporting a strong level of intervention (franshising). The results after ten years show two interesting situations. On one hand, although subsidies are not the cause of the revision, it takes place after it, introducing a new element to the history of the trade, after 7 years of steady fare increases. On the other hand, though the regulation does not suffer substantial reforms, after it an enterprise structure different to the traditional one appears, showing results in common with other national and international experiences of different orientation. The regulatory revision (similar to the one carried away with interurban bus transport)also covers free offer or alternative services, already existing at the moment of its implementation and coming out after it with a different profile to the previous one. The overall process can be described as of conservative maturity. Considering empirical data on the evolution of the case, this paper aims at capturing theoretical elements to be used to interpret which situations take place in the displacement of objectives and results of the policies. For this purpose, an integrated analysis of both types of service in carried away (public or conventional service, regulated by franchising; and free offer or alternative service, without price regulation or operational conditions), and comparative with other national and international experiences by selecting specific topics (relationship between demand and fare and quantity of participants, between size of participants and innovation capacity, among them). It is applied to the characterization of the behaviour in theoretical terms of the multiscale and multi dimensional analysis.