Informal transportation systems provide mobility in the urban periphery of Lima, Perú

By César Ponce

Introduction

Informal transportation can be defined as modes of transport operated by citizens without initial planning or oversight by the state. Over 60% of daily commutes in Lima, Perú, are made using informal bus transport. Despite this, transportation reforms implemented over the past 20 years have neither acknowledged the crucial role of informal transportation in sustaining everyday urban life nor outlined clear pathways toward formal transit systems. In this context, it is essential to examine how informal transport is socio-spatially produced in Lima.

This case study specifically focuses on an informal transport company operating a route that begins in the northeastern district of San Juan de Lurigancho, the most populous district in Latin America with one million residents, continues through the city center, and concludes in the northwestern sector of Ciudad Pachacútec. Notably, the initial and final bus stops are interchangeable depending on the driver’s perspective of the route. Approximately 60 drivers depart daily from each terminal with intervals of 3 to 5 minutes. This study centers on drivers who commence their routes in Ciudad Pachacútec, where they are also residents. For these individuals, informal transportation has served as an employment opportunity to combat poverty and create career pathways that engage family members: sons, nephews, and spouses often work in the same industry. The drivers endure long workdays, typically spanning from 14 to 16 hours to secure sufficient income. Additionally, the competitive environment, where income depends on passenger volume, compels them to maintain a high pace, frequently competing with other buses.

Analysis

Lima is a stratified city extending from the center to the periphery, a spatial organization that intensified with mid-20th-century waves of rural-to-urban migration. Within this structure, informal transportation plays a role in promoting “social efficiency” (Avellaneda & Lazo, 2011), facilitating access for residents of urban peripheries to employment opportunities concentrated in central areas (Gonzáles de Olarte & Del Pozo, 2012). This scenario is particularly pronounced in Ciudad Pachacútec, a distant sector where mobility is less of a choice and more of a necessity to participate in the labor market. With low rates of motorization and considerable distances to cover, metropolitan-scale informal transport is effectively the sole option for Pachacútec residents to reach different areas of the city. Consequently, transportation in Ciudad Pachacútec can be understood as “mobility by obligation” (Jirón, 2010); that is to say, traversing Lima via extensive informal transport routes is a necessity, not a choice.

However, this obligatory mobility does not preclude the development of social relationships between informal transport drivers and passengers. Within Ciudad Pachacútec, reciprocal forms of solidarity and social relations between drivers and passengers emerge. For instance, fare collectors might occasionally waive fares for Pachacútec residents in cases of special need, while passengers, in turn, position themselves toward the back of the bus to allow more people to board, benefiting the drivers. Simone’s concept of “people as infrastructure” (Simone, 2004) helps elucidate how individuals’ active engagement and collective involvement counterbalance enforced mobilities through such social engagement. As the route progresses beyond Ciudad Pachacútec, these solidarities diminish, giving way to more distant, transactional interactions characterized by urban anonymity among strangers. This gradient in social relationships along the route corresponds with Simone’s notion of people as infrastructure, illustrating the forms of cooperation and engagement that evolve through informal transportation networks.

Implications

Transportation planning in Lima and the reform initiatives of recent decades have largely overlooked informal transit. There has been minimal consideration of a structured transition from informal to formal transport systems (Behrens et al., 2016), which would acknowledge the role of informal transport in bridging social divides and fostering efficiency. Furthermore, informal transportation has not been fully understood as an employment sector embedded in the history and social relations of urban peripheries.

This case study demonstrates the important role of informal transport in urban peripheries, emphasizing the importance of recognizing the social ties between drivers and passengers when planning public transport. By viewing informal transportation as a set of practices rather than through a normative lens of formal versus informal (Roy, 2007), it becomes possible to understand how informal transport networks foster community in Lima’s urban peripheries. These forms of social infrastructures enhance the capabilities of Ciudad Pachacútec’s residents by connecting the urban periphery with the broader city. In this sense, the social relations developed through informal transport network allows us to redefine critical planning as an embedded and continuous process by which people’s spatiality is organized, considering power relations, the group’s local history, and the diverse scale interactions that affect them. Although informal transportation is primarily concentrated in cities of the Global South, similar social infrastructure models can also be identified in cities of the Global North, suggesting the relevance of considering transportation systems for their capacity to generate social connections across diverse urban contexts.

Informal transportation buses. Source: photo taken by César Ponce.

The bus starting the route at Ciudad Pachacútec. Source: photo taken by César Ponce.