FIXING THE SYSTEM WITHOUT BREAKING IT: WHAT CITIES CAN LEARN FROM BOGOTÁ’S MAPATÓN
PROJECT PARTICIPANTS INTERVIEWED:
ERIK VERGEL-TOVAR is an Urban Planning professor at Universidad de los Andes; led the Mapatón project and the student team.
NICOLÁS GUTIÉRREZ, MARÍA CAMILA ROA, and MARYFELY RINCON are Urban Planning and Management alumni at Universidad del Rosario; participated in mapping, field research and interviews.
PAULO MARTÍNEZ is an Economics alumni of the Universidad del Rosario; helped shape the narrative of the project and engaged with policymakers.
ERIK VERGEL-TOVAR is an Urban Planning professor at Universidad de los Andes; led the Mapatón project and the student team.
NICOLÁS GUTIÉRREZ, MARÍA CAMILA ROA, and MARYFELY RINCON are Urban Planning and Management alumni at Universidad del Rosario; participated in mapping, field research and interviews.
PAULO MARTÍNEZ is an Economics alumni of the Universidad del Rosario; helped shape the narrative of the project and engaged with policymakers.
When Santiago, Chile tried to replace its informal buses with a new rapid transit system in the mid-2000s, the result was chaos. With little warning, long-trusted routes vanished overnight. Confused commuters waited at unfamiliar stops. Protests erupted across the city. It was a masterclass in how not to formalize public transit.
A thousand miles north, Bogotá, Colombia faced the same challenge. But it chose a different path—one rooted in patience, data, and community trust. And at the center of that path was a team of students, a clipboard, and a simple question: Where do these buses actually go?
In 2017, a project dubbed the Mapatón set out to map Bogotá’s informal buses. For decades, these provisionales were more than transportation. They were an extension of the people who ran them—privately owned, decorated, blasting vallenato or reggaetón, with hand-painted decals listing landmarks: “Unicentro,” “Chapinero,” “Barrio Kennedy.” You didn’t consult a map—you watched the front window, hopped in, and hoped to land close to your destination. Riders paid in coins and bartered for children’s fares. The experience was as informal as it was essential.
When Bogotá began its transition to a formal transit system, the challenge wasn’t just building infrastructure—it was doing so without leaving people behind. Ensuring equity required data: understanding where the buses ran, who they served, and what gaps they filled. This data became the foundation for a more inclusive system.
THE MAPATÓN: MAPPING THE INVISIBLE
To make the invisible visible, a small team of urban planning and management students took on a task government agencies had avoided: riding, recording, and mapping the entire provisionales system, route by route. Led by Professor Erik Vergel-Tovar—then at Universidad del Rosario, now at Universidad de los Andes—the project began in 2017 as a collaboration with New York University’s Eric Goldwyn, inspired by Nairobi’s Digital Matatus.
Students used GPS apps like Flocktracker, developed at MIT, and Google Maps to log hundreds of informal routes. They boarded buses with no idea where they were going, documenting origin and destination points, stops, frequencies, and even the cultural character of each bus. It was part urban science, part anthropological expedition.
“Each route was its own world,” recalled Nicolás Gutiérrez, a UMD program alumnus at Universidad del Rosario. “At the start, we had a structured system for mapping, but as we gathered data, every route made us rethink how to work.”
Collecting coordinates often meant building trust. Riders and drivers were wary of outsiders tracking their movements, especially in marginalized areas where informal systems were lifelines. But when people understood the project’s purpose, something shifted. “I remember a woman on one bus who asked what we were doing,” said Nicolás. “When we explained that this data could help protect and improve the system, her face lit up. She understood it was about more than buses—it was about her daily life.”
What the team mapped wasn’t chaos, but a complex, responsive system shaped by decades of real-world use. Informal stops clustered around markets, job centers, and transit-poor peripheries. Some routes overlapped with TransMilenio corridors; others served neighborhoods the formal system had never reached.
One of the most surprising insights came from how the buses managed frequency. Without formal schedules or GPS tracking, drivers relied on counters—people stationed along routes with stopwatches to signal how far ahead or behind the next bus was. “It was remarkably efficient,” said María Camila. “When the formal system started, they didn’t have anything like that. People waited 30 or 40 minutes for buses.”
“The provisionales had better frequency than the formal services when these first started,” she added. “That was something planners didn’t fully consider when designing TransMilenio.”
A MODEL OF INTEGRATION, NOT REPLACEMENT
The team’s data became the foundation for a GTFS (General Transit Feed Specification) dataset, later adopted by Bogotá’s transit authority to inform route consolidation and expansion. With help from MIT researchers like Jonathan Leape and Chris Zegras, the data evolved from student project to policy tool. While TransMilenio began operating in 2000, the provisionales continued to run alongside it for over a decade—especially in areas the new system didn’t yet reach. Bogotá’s bus network remained fragmented, with overlapping services and inconsistent access. It wasn’t until 2011 that the city launched the Sistema Integrado de Transporte Público (SITP), an effort to unify formal and informal transit under a single system.
Even then, the transition was gradual. From 2012 to 2019, provisionales routes were phased out in stages. The city absorbed informal operators into new companies, retrained drivers, and introduced formal contracts. Some routes were preserved and incorporated into SITP; others were restructured or eliminated—but only after careful mapping and evaluation.
“I think the most valuable thing we did,” said Paulo Martínez, “was to get experts to start taking the system seriously. It wasn’t part of political decisions before. But with data, it became real—something they had to consider.”
Mapping first, integrating later, helped Bogotá avoid the pitfalls that plagued other cities. Santiago de Chile, for example, attempted a sweeping overhaul, leading to confusion, disruptions, and backlash. Bogotá, by contrast, took nearly two decades, ensuring continuity of access and working toward more equitable outcomes.
In 2017, a project dubbed the Mapatón set out to map Bogotá’s informal buses. For decades, these provisionales were more than transportation. They were an extension of the people who ran them—privately owned, decorated, blasting vallenato or reggaetón, with hand-painted decals listing landmarks: “Unicentro,” “Chapinero,” “Barrio Kennedy.” You didn’t consult a map—you watched the front window, hopped in, and hoped to land close to your destination. Riders paid in coins and bartered for children’s fares. The experience was as informal as it was essential.
When Bogotá began its transition to a formal transit system, the challenge wasn’t just building infrastructure—it was doing so without leaving people behind. Ensuring equity required data: understanding where the buses ran, who they served, and what gaps they filled. This data became the foundation for a more inclusive system.
THE MAPATÓN: MAPPING THE INVISIBLE
To make the invisible visible, a small team of urban planning and management students took on a task government agencies had avoided: riding, recording, and mapping the entire provisionales system, route by route. Led by Professor Erik Vergel-Tovar—then at Universidad del Rosario, now at Universidad de los Andes—the project began in 2017 as a collaboration with New York University’s Eric Goldwyn, inspired by Nairobi’s Digital Matatus.
Students used GPS apps like Flocktracker, developed at MIT, and Google Maps to log hundreds of informal routes. They boarded buses with no idea where they were going, documenting origin and destination points, stops, frequencies, and even the cultural character of each bus. It was part urban science, part anthropological expedition.
“Each route was its own world,” recalled Nicolás Gutiérrez, a UMD program alumnus at Universidad del Rosario. “At the start, we had a structured system for mapping, but as we gathered data, every route made us rethink how to work.”
Collecting coordinates often meant building trust. Riders and drivers were wary of outsiders tracking their movements, especially in marginalized areas where informal systems were lifelines. But when people understood the project’s purpose, something shifted. “I remember a woman on one bus who asked what we were doing,” said Nicolás. “When we explained that this data could help protect and improve the system, her face lit up. She understood it was about more than buses—it was about her daily life.”
What the team mapped wasn’t chaos, but a complex, responsive system shaped by decades of real-world use. Informal stops clustered around markets, job centers, and transit-poor peripheries. Some routes overlapped with TransMilenio corridors; others served neighborhoods the formal system had never reached.
One of the most surprising insights came from how the buses managed frequency. Without formal schedules or GPS tracking, drivers relied on counters—people stationed along routes with stopwatches to signal how far ahead or behind the next bus was. “It was remarkably efficient,” said María Camila. “When the formal system started, they didn’t have anything like that. People waited 30 or 40 minutes for buses.”
“The provisionales had better frequency than the formal services when these first started,” she added. “That was something planners didn’t fully consider when designing TransMilenio.”
A MODEL OF INTEGRATION, NOT REPLACEMENT
The team’s data became the foundation for a GTFS (General Transit Feed Specification) dataset, later adopted by Bogotá’s transit authority to inform route consolidation and expansion. With help from MIT researchers like Jonathan Leape and Chris Zegras, the data evolved from student project to policy tool. While TransMilenio began operating in 2000, the provisionales continued to run alongside it for over a decade—especially in areas the new system didn’t yet reach. Bogotá’s bus network remained fragmented, with overlapping services and inconsistent access. It wasn’t until 2011 that the city launched the Sistema Integrado de Transporte Público (SITP), an effort to unify formal and informal transit under a single system.
Even then, the transition was gradual. From 2012 to 2019, provisionales routes were phased out in stages. The city absorbed informal operators into new companies, retrained drivers, and introduced formal contracts. Some routes were preserved and incorporated into SITP; others were restructured or eliminated—but only after careful mapping and evaluation.
“I think the most valuable thing we did,” said Paulo Martínez, “was to get experts to start taking the system seriously. It wasn’t part of political decisions before. But with data, it became real—something they had to consider.”
Mapping first, integrating later, helped Bogotá avoid the pitfalls that plagued other cities. Santiago de Chile, for example, attempted a sweeping overhaul, leading to confusion, disruptions, and backlash. Bogotá, by contrast, took nearly two decades, ensuring continuity of access and working toward more equitable outcomes.
MAPPING AS RISK, SOLIDARITY, AND DISCOVERY
The Mapatón was not without its risks. Some students faced threats in high-crime areas. In Soacha, a municipality on Bogotá’s edge, the team encountered a group of men waiting for them after a tense ride. A group of older women—likely mothers and grandmothers—intervened, instructing the driver to keep the doors closed and drive on. Their solidarity may have saved the students from robbery or worse.
“That was when I realized how strong the sense of community was along those routes,” said Nicolás. “People knew each other. They looked out for each other. That was something no transit plan could replicate.”
REPLICATING THE APPROACH THROUGH THE MAPATON CARTAGENA PROJECT
In 2019, following the success in Bogotá, Fundación Corona and Cartagena Cómo Vamos invited the team to replicate the project in Cartagena, on Colombia’s Caribbean coast. Funded by the World Bank and supported locally by the Universidad Tecnológica de Bolívar, students used digital tools to map the city’s formal and informal transportation routes. As mapping progressed, the team found that the informal network extended beyond Cartagena to neighboring municipalities within the urban agglomeration. The project identified transit deserts and connectivity gaps, while Cartagena Cómo Vamos proposed strategies to better link the routes and reduce transportation costs, especially for vulnerable populations.
WHAT BOGOTÁ CAN TEACH THE WORLD
The provisionales, personalized by their drivers, reflected a culture of work, resilience, and identity. Today, most provisionales have been replaced by the standardized blue buses of the SITP. Their influence persists, however: in the layout of Bogotá’s transit system, and in its culture. Tourists buy provisionales decals as souvenirs, and former riders still navigate by landmarks. The muscle memory of informality hasn’t disappeared—it’s simply been formalized.
“The BRT system in Bogotá is based on bus culture,” said Professor Vergel-Tovar. “The provisionales taught us how people actually move. That knowledge shaped the system we have today.”
As new forms of informal transit emerge—ride-hailing apps, mototaxis, and more—the lessons of the Mapatón remain urgent: to build a system that works, start by understanding the one people already use. To design for equity, center the people at the margins—not only in rhetoric, but in data, design, and decision-making.
The Mapatón was not without its risks. Some students faced threats in high-crime areas. In Soacha, a municipality on Bogotá’s edge, the team encountered a group of men waiting for them after a tense ride. A group of older women—likely mothers and grandmothers—intervened, instructing the driver to keep the doors closed and drive on. Their solidarity may have saved the students from robbery or worse.
“That was when I realized how strong the sense of community was along those routes,” said Nicolás. “People knew each other. They looked out for each other. That was something no transit plan could replicate.”
REPLICATING THE APPROACH THROUGH THE MAPATON CARTAGENA PROJECT
In 2019, following the success in Bogotá, Fundación Corona and Cartagena Cómo Vamos invited the team to replicate the project in Cartagena, on Colombia’s Caribbean coast. Funded by the World Bank and supported locally by the Universidad Tecnológica de Bolívar, students used digital tools to map the city’s formal and informal transportation routes. As mapping progressed, the team found that the informal network extended beyond Cartagena to neighboring municipalities within the urban agglomeration. The project identified transit deserts and connectivity gaps, while Cartagena Cómo Vamos proposed strategies to better link the routes and reduce transportation costs, especially for vulnerable populations.
WHAT BOGOTÁ CAN TEACH THE WORLD
The provisionales, personalized by their drivers, reflected a culture of work, resilience, and identity. Today, most provisionales have been replaced by the standardized blue buses of the SITP. Their influence persists, however: in the layout of Bogotá’s transit system, and in its culture. Tourists buy provisionales decals as souvenirs, and former riders still navigate by landmarks. The muscle memory of informality hasn’t disappeared—it’s simply been formalized.
“The BRT system in Bogotá is based on bus culture,” said Professor Vergel-Tovar. “The provisionales taught us how people actually move. That knowledge shaped the system we have today.”
As new forms of informal transit emerge—ride-hailing apps, mototaxis, and more—the lessons of the Mapatón remain urgent: to build a system that works, start by understanding the one people already use. To design for equity, center the people at the margins—not only in rhetoric, but in data, design, and decision-making.