Critical evaluation of transit policies in Lima, Peru; resilience of rail rapid transit (Metro) in a developing country

Abstract

This paper evaluates rail transit within the context of the transit policies implemented in Lima, Peru. First it reviews the implementation of rapid transit, and bus reform. Secondly, it evaluates the outcomes of such policies by using Total Factor Productivity for policy effectiveness, Data Envelopment Analysis for rapid transit performance, and Generalized Cost of Travel for improvements. This paper finds that implementation failed in enforcing key requirements for rail transit regarding penetration of CBD and short transfers to bus transit; and that the basic assumptions of bus reform did not hold regarding bus oversupply, bus congestion or bus pollution. This paper also finds that outcomes of policies failed dramatically in achieving the planning goals; however, rail transit (Metro) shows high level of resilience in serving large ridership at high speed. On the other hand, bus reform was associated with a disproportionate increase of motorization, well over the effect of income growth or car attractiveness, and more related to the excessive reduction of bus transit capacity ill-advised from unproved bus reform assumptions. This paper recommends expanding rail rapid transit due to its intensive use of green renewable energy and its potential of demand growth if combined with modern Intelligent Transportation services, but this opportunity can be wasted without the proposed policy constraint to achieve lower Generalized Cost of Travel at any governmental intervention for bus reform, instead of just reducing bus transit capacity as implemented. Finally, this paper recommends government to government contracts to build rail transit and to enforce proper planning.