How it began
On September 24, 1928, the first taxi-bus ran through Buenos Aires. The Los Angeles Times reported that the colectivo was invented that year by immigrant Spanish and Italian taxi drivers. The vehicle was a long-wheelbase Chevrolet double phaeton built in Argentina. It carried passengers on a set itinerary with set stops and charged each of them a low price. The name comes from vehiculos de transporte colectivo, vehicles for collective transport.
Before it existed
By the 1920s Buenos Aires, a city of about two million people, had trains, electric tramways, taxis, public buses and the first metro system in Latin America, many of them brought by British investors. Taxis carried one fare at a time, and the city's tourism office recounts that in 1928 taxi drivers were short of passengers.
How it works
A colectivo follows a fixed route and picks up riders who each pay a small fare. The first ones seated five people, and by the 1930s they were built on truck chassis with up to a dozen seats and bodies made by local firms. Owners joined together into lines that ran standard routes, each shown by a number and later by its own colors. For most of their history the driver sold the tickets while driving.
Who pushed back
Colectivo drivers deliberately challenged the established buses and electric tramways, parking near them at the busiest stations and driving close to them to pick up their passengers. Riders came to prefer the colectivos, which displaced the original buses and trams.
Where it stands today
The colectivo system of Buenos Aires runs frequent services over extensive routes. In 1985 the Los Angeles Times counted about 11,000 privately owned units carrying 2.5 billion passengers a year without government subsidy. The truck-based vehicles were replaced by rear-engined buses from the late 1980s, ticket machines arrived after 1995, and since December 2015 the SUBE card has been the only way to pay.
