For my first post I’ve chosen a not exciting but necessary topic: the definition of informal transit. I’ll also call it informal public transport (IPT), a more universal term. Although this is not central to this work, I want to critically explore how the word “informal” is used because it is one binary (formal-informal) that hides a much more complex and nuanced reality of which we should be aware.
In the context of the global South (an economic and political context), the World Bank defined IPT in 2002 as “Publicly available passenger transport service that is outside the traditional public transport regulatory system”. It sounds a quite precise definition but on the ground it holds less value as the situation is usually not totally formal or informal but something in-between. For example, when a transport exceeds the allowed maximum speed, is literally outside the regulation but the common sense tells us that it’s not helpful to automatically consider it a case of informality. On the other hand, if a transport is operating just partially outside the licensed route, you might see it as a case of IPT. So, an interpretation of the specific context becomes helpful in defining the problem.
There are of course many cases of “total” informality, that is, most basic regulation is not respected (such as a transport that operates without any required licence) but when addressing IPT not only these cases are worth of considering. You might want to take into account the “grey areas” as well. Furthermore, if we take the condition “outside regulation” very strictly, it means that in cases with non-existing or very weak regulation one could easily achieve a non-informal and therefore “formal” transport which would be similar to an informal one in a more demanding context. Maybe that’s why the World Bank mentioned the “traditional public transit regulatory system”, which obviously refers to the practices of developed countries.
So, we should never forget that the term IPT is being mostly used as a working definition for public transportation that operates significantly outside of an idealized and case-specific model which is mainly based on the values of the global North. This is the definition that for practical purposes I use here too, not trying to go much deep in regulation and compliance or enforcement details. Therefore IPT defines itself trough its specific properties in relation to an ideal model. For example, the mini-buses in Mexico City (called microbuses or peseros), although becoming ever more formal in the strict sense (compliance in route-licences and applied fares), don’t have regular schedules like it would be expected in similar systems and thus they fall on the group of IPT.
To keep the full spectrum in mind, we should not forget that we can have different scales and levels of service in IPT (from rickshaws operating door to door to big buses operating on regular routes). And for disambiguation purposes, the term paratransit is used mostly in the USA independently from regulation matters to define transport that is publicly used but has no strict route or schedule (something between taxis and mass transit), which if often a feature from IPT systems and therefore the two terms often overlay eachother (I’ll use it separatly, to designate the functional traits). This shows the importance of going beyond value based definitions (e.g. “does it fall short of our traditional model?”) and defining subjects with their qualities.
Smartifying Informal Transit 