Revisiting the Transantiago reform: were all the lessons learned?

In Santiago, the capital of Chile, an ambitious reform of the public transport system, named Transantiago, was introduced in February 2007. Serious design and implementation problems were immediately evident, creating a major social and political crisis. In this paper we revisit this experience and argue that one of the main ―if not the main― design errors behind the initial failure was the lack of funding for infrastructure and operational subsidies. The higher cost of the new system was implicitly funded through a decrease in the fleet size and network coverage, as well as an excessive trunk-feeder service configuration. This ultimately led to an increase in the generalized cost of transit and a significant reduction in users’ welfare. We argue that this same issue is apparent in other problematic transit reforms in the region, including Mibus in Panama, SITP in Bogota and the SITM experience in intermediate cities of Colombia. The main lesson for policymakers is that if public funds are not available then the pace and ambitions of a transit reform need to be scaled back.