TransMilenio


TransMilenio is a bus rapid transit system that serves Bogotá, the capital of Colombia, as well as Soacha, a neighbouring city. The system opened to the public in December 2000. As of 2024, 12 corridors containing 120 bus routes totalling run throughout the city. It is part of the city's Integrated Public Transport System, along with the urban, complimentary, and special bus services operating on neighbourhood and main streets.
TransMilenio consists of several interconnected BRT lines, with raised floor stations in the center of a main avenue, or "troncal". Passengers typically reach the stations via a bridge across the street. Typically, four lanes down the center of the street are dedicated to bus traffic, with the outer lanes allowing express buses to bypass buses stopped at a station.
As of 2024, the trunk line system was circulating 1,801 buses on average. An additional set of 869 regular buses, known as "feeders", carry passengers from certain important stations to many different locations unreachable on the main route. Unlike the main TransMilenio buses, feeders operate without dedicated lanes, are not articulated, and are either green or blue. There is no additional fare to use the feeder buses.
There are 27 bicycle parking facilities in main TransMilenio stations with 7,351 parking spaces to facilitate cyclists using the system. Eight BRT corridors were certified in 2013 to meet the BRT standard with excellence: Autonorte and Caracas received silver certifications, while Americas, Calle 80, Eldorado, NQS, and Suba received gold.

History

Background

Before TransMilenio, mass transit in Bogotá consisted of thousands of independently operated and uncoordinated mini buses. There was also a plan for a network of elevated highways throughout Bogotá, and plans to build a subway as Medellín had done several years prior. When Enrique Peñalosa was elected mayor he cancelled these projects and oversaw the construction of the initial TransMilenio system, significantly reducing costs relative to these proposals.

Construction and opening

The mayor oversaw the creation of a special company to build the project and run the central system. The operational design of TransMilenio was undertaken by transport consultants Steer Davies Gleave, with the financial structuring of the project led by Capitalcorp S.A., a local investment bank. Most of the money required to build TransMilenio was provided by the Colombian government, while the city of Bogotá provided the remaining 30%.
The first phase of TransMilenio opened in December 2000, three years after the project was initiated. It covered Caracas Avenue and. Other lines were added gradually over the next several years. In 1998, Prior to the introduction of TransMilenio, a 30 km trip by public transport would take 2 hours and 15 minutes; the same trip using TransMilenio in 2008 took 55 minutes.
In the beginning, most buses were diesel-powered, purchased from manufacturers such as the Colombian-Brazilian company Marcopolo-Superior, Mercedes-Benz, Volvo, and Scania. The buses were articulated and had a capacity of 160 passengers each. In May 2007, a new, larger bi-articulated bus, with capacity for 270 passengers, was presented to the public.
Bogotá won the first Sustainable Transport Award in 2005 due to the BRT system, as well as the city's urban cycling strategy.
For two days starting May 2 2006, several groups of bus drivers not associated with TransMilenio held a strike, protesting against some elements and consequences of the system. They disagreed with the amount of monetary compensation that they would receive in exchange for the disposal of old buses, traffic restrictions on the TransMilenio main lines, and a new initiative called Pico y Placa Ambiental in some city areas, which would restrict the schedules of buses older than 10 years to early morning hours to reduce pollution in the city.
Since the May 2006 expansion, the TransMilenio route system has changed dramatically, with new sections added to the system.
Large-scale protests over deficiencies in TransMilenio erupted on March 9 2012. Hundreds of protestors, many of them students, looted and broke windows, as well as blocking several of Bogotá's main roads. Criticisms cited include relatively high prices, overcrowding, and delays along many routes. 11 were injured, and over half a million dollars in damage were done. The vandals were confronted and detained by riot police, who used tear gas as well as water cannons to combat the protestors.
At the end of 2018, Transmilenio ordered 1383 new buses to replace older models still in service. 52% were produced by Scania and ran on compressed natural gas, achieving a Euro 6 emission rating, while 48% were diesel-engined and made by Volvo with a Euro 5 emission rating.
Bogotá won the Sustainable Transport Award for a second time in 2022, due in part to the continued expansion and success of TransMilenio. A press release by the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy stated that "The City of Bogotá has assembled a fleet of 1,485 electric buses for its public transportation system—placing the city among the three largest e-bus fleets outside of China."

Infrastructure

TransMilenio has 12 lines serving 152 stations in the cities of Bogotá and Soacha:
Instead of being numbered, routes have a combination of letters and numbers. In order to fill the information gap, TransMilenio made available an interactive guide that includes routes, stations, nearby places, and route combinations.
Construction of a new line in Carrera 7 is under consideration. This has been criticized as there are certain locations where the system might not fit.

Vehicles

TransMilenio buses are not equipped with transponders to give them signal priority. Regret over this decision was voiced by the former general manager of the system, Angelica Castro.

Stations

There are six types of stations:
  • Sencillas : local service stations, located approximately every 500 m
  • De transferencia : allow for transfer between different lines via a tunnel
  • Sin intercambio : do not allow transfer between lanes ; located in the Autopista Norte, Tunal and 6th Street ramification.
  • Intermedias : service both feeder and trunk line routes.
  • Cabecera : near the entrances to the city. In addition to feeders and articulated buses, intercity buses from the metropolitan area also arrive at these stations.
  • Paraderos bus dual : located in the streets, these stops don't have turnstiles, electronic boards, and the floor level is the same of the street; served by buses with station-level and street-level doors. These stops are located in the pretrunk corridors.
All stations have electronic boards announcing the approximate arrival time of the next bus. Wait times are short as there is usually a bus serving the station. There are also station attendants to provide assistance to the passengers, and posted system maps.
Users pay at the station entrance using a smart card, pass through a turnstile, and wait for buses inside the station, which is typically 5 m wide. The bus and station doors open simultaneously, and passengers board by walking across the threshold. The elevated station platform and the bus floor are at the same height.
TransMilenio stations comply with easy access regulations because they are elevated and have ramps leading to the entrance. The alimentadores are normal buses without handicapped accessibility. A lawsuit by disabled user Daniel Bermúdez caused a ruling that all feeder systems must comply with easy access regulations by 2004, but this has not happened yet.

Services

The zoning divides the trunks into 12 lines or zones that have different letters and colors. The maps changed at each station, to show the specific services to the station in question and the way to reach the other zones of the system from there.
The trunk system has three types of services:
  • Regular Routes : These are the numbered routes from 1 to 9 that stop at all stations and work all day. As of August 2008, this type of service was called the Easy Route. On June 17, 2017, these services were modified, replacing the routes that operated since 2006 by shorter trails, in addition to a change of nomenclature, which did not include the letter and the color of the destination area.
  • Express : Routes that only stop at the stations determined in their route, and are numbered from 10 to 75.
  • Dual bus trunk : Routes to extend the TransMilenio trunk service to arteries, beginning with the Carrera Séptima.

    Fares and tickets

The fare as of 2025 is 3,200 Colombian pesos for a single trip. Cards use a contactless smart card system, and multiple trips may be purchased using one card.

Costs, ridership, and impact

According to a United States Transportation Research Board case study report, the initial construction cost for the first 41 km of TransMilenio routes was US$240 million, or US$5.85 million/km. In a report presented later by the Ministry of Transport of Colombia, the total cost of construction for phase one was estimated at COL$1.4 billion, of which COL$253.053 million was provided by the Colombian government.
The construction of the second phase was estimated at COL$3.2 billion, of which COL$2.1 billion was provided by the Colombian government, with the rest being provided by the city. The numbers of this report are calculated in money of 2009.
The system is overseen by a public body, which awards contracts to private bus companies on a competitive basis. According to TRB, private contractors are paid based on the total number of kilometers that their vehicles operate.
Daily ridership quickly reached 800,000 after the system opened. TransMilenio has since been expanded, with ridership up to 1,050,000 by early 2006. In 2009 it had reached 1,400,000 daily, and by September 2018 a weekday would see 2.4 million passengers. Other cities have since adopted systems modelled on TransMilenio, including the Mexico City Metrobús, as well as Red Metropolitana de Movilidad in Santiago, Chile. Most of these, however, are complemented with a traditional rapid transit system.