Newly annointed Dr. @erumrum shared with me a paper on Santiago, Chile's public transport redesign in early 2000s, titled @Transantiago: A tale of two cities. Riveting read & raises really interesting questions about Karachi's transport experience. Thought I'd share here:
1. Santiago went through a deregulation of public transport in 1980s, leading to "atomised ownership structure" and fall in service quality through the 90s. Same in Karachi. Many owners, own 1-2 buses, & form a powerful political collective (Khi Transport Ittehad). Bad quality.
Impact of this in Santiago: on-street competition for passengers, ticket-pocketing, denial of service to vulnerable folks, deferred vehicle maintenance, bad working conditions for drivers. Same in Karachi. Do all large cities deteriorate the same way? 🤔
More importantly, these atomised operators deploy a manual system for maintaining headway on their lines, operated by men at points along the route. Where have we read this? @Mahim_Maher's story, Minute Men of Karachi. How do Khi and Santiago operators devise similar systems? 🤯
2. Existing operators, routes and learnings ignored by architects of the new plan. Later, suffer because of it because transfers through the system for individuals increased (system rationalised, but not optimised). Lots of other complications for ridership. Khi doing the same 🧐
3. Specifically hard to implement: technical systems of fare collection and GPS monitoring of buses, despite being led by a big consortium. I see this in my present work every day. Tech deadlines are slippery, because requirements change. But they are crucial to system success.
4. Surprising absence of an overall information system at touchpoints. Ppl still continued to take older, longer routes cuz they didn't know. No maps, info systems etc. Not surprising because the planning committee was only technical folks, not designers 💁♂️
5. Inordinate amount of emphasis on financial sustainability of system, at the cost of everything else. The focus on contracts, bidding, future demand and revenue guarantees etc. All this was eventually revised later after system opened. Do we have the capacity for this? 💰
Lastly, the authors had a cold, clinical approach in their recommendations to govt. "We believe there is room for a slightly higher fare." Why? "Since demand for the Metro exceeds capacity at peak periods." Made me cringe. Don't be assholes, academics. 🏰
Anyone interested in reading the paper, DM me, and I'll share over email. Fantastic read. Curious to hear what you think.
FYI, for context, Urban Resource Center with Arif Hasan & Mansoor Raza, has published this seminal work on Khi's transport: pubs.iied.org/pdfs/10733IIED…
FYI, for context, Urban Resource Center with Arif Hasan & Mansoor Raza, has published this seminal work on Khi's transport: pubs.iied.org/pdfs/10733IIED…
