Latin America’s Urban Mobility Observatory Projects The Image of 15 of the Continent’s Metropolises for the first time

(Bogotá, September 15, 2010).- CAF, Latin America’s development bank, in the company of authorities and mobility experts in the region, presented some of the issues that will be compulsory for any urban mobility agenda in the coming years, gleaned from the first harvest of data obtained by the Urban Mobility Observatory for Latin America (OMU).

“CAF is handing over an objective tool for having a more detailed, comparative picture of mobility in the region’s cities, which is going to facilitate decision-making and improve planning with clear objectives and evaluation criteria,” pointed out Antonio J. Sosa, CAF’s Corporate Vice President for Infrastructure.

Based on the data obtained in 11 urban mobility related categories, there are five aspects on the regional level that will be fundamental in the future:

• Dramatic growth in the automotive park: a challenge As the emerging economies grow, low-income people enter the mobility market with the acquisition of motorbikes, whereas the new middle classes buy cars. As a natural consequence of this growth in the automotive park, traffic congestion increases and there is a negative impact on the profitability and quality of public transport, a situation that requires detailed evaluations in order to diagnose the needs of the metropolises and generate rational solutions that are sustainable over the medium and long terms, in line with the best world practices. This includes upgrading and prioritizing public transport, adequate traffic management, expanding areas for pedestrian and bicycle traffic, and greater integration of systems.
• Solutions designed on the basis of facts not speculation Public policies on mobility issues should be formulated increasingly less on the basis of general perceptions and speculations and increasingly more on well-documented facts. The OMU is a first step in making meeting this need possible, as it opens up the opportunity for determining the main characteristics of the transport system and the urban areas it caters to, as well as for achieving a better understanding the transport processes and their relationship with accessibility, mobility, and urban development. This will be fundamental for the different levels of government, citizens, academia, experts, and planners so that they can act in ways that are more precise, coordinated, efficient, and transparent and create the institutions needed to manage increasingly complex cities.
• Reducing the impact of negative externalities There is an observable direct relationship between the growth in the presence of private automobiles and motorbikes and the poor quality of public transport and the level of negative externalities that transport generates on other aspects of social life, such as environmental pollution and the accident mortality rate. This generates a high cost for society insofar as citizens and different sectors of the economy, such as health and energy, are affected.
• Transport is closely linked to other sectors of the economy Transport is a fundamental sector of the economy, part of a complex society with multiple variables. There are close links between industrial, economic, employment and energy policies and the situation of transport. For example, the increase in loans granted by commercial banks for the acquisition of vehicles (automobiles and motorbikes) implies a high cost for mobility. In general terms, there are external policies that have profound impacts on the transport sector that are beyond its control, which calls for greater coordination by the sectors involved.
• The public transport system is a responsibility of the State It is fundamental that the State play an active role in the development of a functional transport system that provides a service to all types of person in a manner that is equitable. Making it more inclusive may reduce the impact of its external costs, which will have a positive impact on public spending on other fronts. It is a responsibility of the State to think about improvements in public transport infrastructure and services, strategic planning, and access with equity and a social sense. This vision vindicates transport as a public service and not merely as a market activity.
• Private enterprise should also take part It is advisable that the private sector be called upon to get involved as a partner in the operation of the public transport system and, to that end, contractual terms should provide the opportunity for obtaining a reasonable profit, which will attract good investors to the sector. At the moment, there is a high level of dispersion and a short-term vision in the provision of transport services, aspects that should be corrected with more organization in order to guarantee an efficient service. To a large extent, this can be addressed with an adequate regulatory framework that distributes risks and responsibilities intelligently between the State and private actors, creates adequate articulation of the entire network, and establishes institutions capable of understanding their role in the management of the system.

Urban Mobility Observatory for Latin America CAF presented the Urban Mobility Observatory for Latin America (OMU), a fundamental tool for diagnosing the strengths and weaknesses of the transport sector and mobility in 15 metropolitan areas of Latin America as regards aspects relating to the supply and demand of infrastructure and services, the environment, security, and energy consumption.

The study, which does a comparative evaluation of the situation in Buenos Aires, Belo Horizonte, Bogotá, Caracas, Mexico City, Curitiba, Guadalajara, León, Lima, Montevideo, Porto Alegre, Río de Janeiro, San José, Santiago, and Sao Paulo, shows that the Colombian capital has significant competitive advantages as well as elements that require improvement.

Some of the most outstanding data for Latin America, compiled between 2007 and 2009, are:

• Considered as a whole, nearly 214 million trips per day are taken in the metropolitan areas analyzed, 43 percent of which are taken on public transport.
• Urban trips use up nearly 45 million liters of alcohol and gasoline a day and only 13 million liters of diesel.
• Traffic management requires the work of 24,000 people a day and transport services as a whole more than 900,000.
• An average of 135,000 tons of contaminating CO2 emissions are generated daily per metropolitan area.
• Money invested by the respective societies in these metropolitan areas, bearing in mind money spent on the construction of roads and the purchase of vehicles, comes to US$ 679 million in new equipment per year.
• People in the region spend nearly US$ 82 billion every twelve months on urban trips; 78 percent of this expenditure goes on the use of private vehicles.