On February 10, 2007 1,500 buses took to the streets, starting a new epoch of public transport in Santiago. Four years later, although there have been many successes, several problems remain. The system has now added 6,200 buses.
Pros
Bus stops: According to data released by the Ministry of Transport and Telecommunications, the bustops were previously only concentrated in some parts of the city, such as Alameda, Providencia, Apoquindo and Greece. With few bus stops, this resulted in the buses stoping sporadically. Now there are more than 10 000 stops, more than 7,000 of them covered or actual stations.
Air Quality: A standard bus Transantiago pollutes 15 times less than a yellow bus.
Noise Polloution: A new bus generates a quarter of the noise generated by a yellow bus.
Jobs: The ministry estimates that there are more than 22,300 people serving in the transport concessionaires of Santiago, of which about 18 thousand are drivers who have regularized their contractual status. This enables greater control, contract work, corporate profits and labor rights.
Disabled access: In the Transantiago buses there is a system of lifts, as well as ramps, and information written in Braille, giving greater access to people with disabilities.
Accidents : Traffic accidents fell by 52% compared to the yellow buses. In 2005 there were 6,366 accidents involving yellow buses, while in 2009 the toll fell to 3,047.
Crimes commited against drivers: By eliminating manual fare collection and the introduction of the prepaid BIP! system, crimes against bus drivers fell by 80%.
Future investment : Transport minister Pedro Pablo Errazuriz unveiled a new investments for the Transantiago. The first part of the infrastructure plan will require an investment of 800 billion dollars until 2015. Among other works, 350 new bus stops will be built this year.
Cons
Fares: Fare evasion by users has risen to 20%. This figure is more than double that recorded on the yellow buses and is well above the 13.4% of passengers who did not pay when the system started in 2007.
Discontent : Many users have called for action against rising fares via demonstrations to messages on the web to evade payment of fares.
Furthermore, the poor frequency of buses and the bad service at night is perceived negatively by users. On websites like reclamos.cl there are hundreds of complaints against Transantiago.
Low rider satisfaction note : According to data released by the ministry, although user satisfaction has risen since 2007, it still remains very low.
Budget Deficit : The cost of operating the system between June and December 2007 was 359,972,000 pesos, while between January and December 2010 was 784,241,000. The deficit for 2007 was 151,960 million, while the year 2010 was 342.226 million pesos.
Read the original article by Boris Yaikin C. on La Tecera (in Spanish)
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