Innovation in the diagnosis of urban mobility in Bogota and Buenos Aires

Since 2019, CAF and IDB have been working together at the Urban Mobility Observatory (OMU), an initiative that links 29 Latin American cities to obtain mobility data and promote less expensive, systematic and innovative collection tools.

In a collaborative exercise between the OMU and Moovit, an Intel company and creator of the #1 urban mobility app worldwide, around 3,000 users of the app in Bogota and Buenos Aires participated in a survey to obtain their perception of the quality, reliability and safety of the public transportation service. Although the sample does not represent the totality of public transportation passengers in both cities, the results provide an interesting perspective on differences in the perception of these aspects according to the characteristics of the transportation and users. The characteristics and results of the survey and statistical tests can be found here.

Below we present the results of the exercise carried out in the metropolitan area of Bogotá. You can find the results for Buenos Aires on the page of our partner, IDB, at this link.

Bogotá

• 830 responses were received, of which 671 (81%) corresponded to people who said they had travelled by public transportation at least once in the last week within the Bogotá Metropolitan Area.
• "Work" is the reason for approximately 70% of travel, consistent with existing restrictions on the use of public transportation.
• As for the mode used, 61% of respondents used some variant of the collective bus system (zonal component or provisional SITP), while 40% used transmilenium's trunk component.
• Overall, three of the indicators associated with the quality of public transportation service are above the neutral value (3). This indicates, in principle, a general approval of the public transport system by Moovit users surveyed. Only the rate associated with security against theft and assault had an average rating below 3.

The performance of the comfort index could be influenced by reduced demand in the context of mobility restrictions and activity resulting from the health precautions for COVID-19 (approaches to trunk and zonal buses decreased 57% and 51% respectively compared to October 2019, according to the SiTP Integrated Public Transportation System Supply and Demand Statistics Report – October 2020).

The surveys, for their part, show greater convenience in bus usage for the zonal component than in Transmilenio's BRT (trunk) system, which may be due to high occupancy on trunk buses. On the other hand, low-income women travel less comfortably than high-income women. This could result from lengthy travel times in lower strata compared to the highest, according to the latest mobility survey, 2019.

The index which captures the reliability of the service slightly exceeds the average level. Considering trunk and zonal services, the former have a better reliability rate. This perception may be due in part to irregularities suffered by services resulting from the same context (more frequent or faster on the trunk bus system with respect to the zonal system) and elsewhere resulting from mixed traffic while the trunk component has a separate lane.

On the other hand, the survey provides important information on Moovit users who did not use Public Transportation in the week leading up to the survey (159 responses, 20%). The main reason for not travelling by public transportation is the "fear of contracting COVID-19" (60% of cases).

A second relevant outcome is that, even in situations of mobility restrictions, those surveyed did not face restrictions on access to public transportation service (whether or not they made trips, for reasons other than having no option in this mode). The perception of safety against sexual harassment situations is generally positive. Males consider traveling safer than women do.

In general, the perception of safety against sexual harassment is more unfavorable on trunk travel than on zonal buses. For their part, high-income women report traveling safer than low-income women.

The index associated with security against theft and assault had the lowest rating, which may be due to the increased incidence of theft of bags or cell phones in hours of high congestion on buses, as well as the perception of insecurity at night due to low activity. No significant differences in respondents' income or gender were observed. On the other hand, there are differences in perceptions of insecurity when traveling on trunk buses with respect to zonal buses.

Finally, when asked what improvements should be made to the public transportation system, the most frequent requests corresponded to frequency and safety at bus stops and within buses. These responses are directly associated with the two indicators that had lower relative performances (reliability and safety).

The results shown correspond to the first preliminary pilots developed and will be adjusted based on the results of other tools that the OMU is exploring to learn how people from Latin American cities travel. These tools will be developed in depth over the course of 2021 and overall results will be presented in the second half of 2021.

However, the data already collected allows us to understand some dimensions of the mobility of the cities studied, which do not always have up-to-date and adequate information. In addition, the chosen methodology allows for periodic evaluations of indicators to quickly measure results, including a good sample of public transportation passengers, thanks to Moovit's user base, and the ability to study their behavior over time. This will provide, in the future, a very powerful tool for planning and evaluating relative public policies with constant monitoring.