A holistic decision-making process to improve the productivity of public transportation in Cuenca-Ecuador

Abstract

National governments are responsible for guaranteeing the accessibility, affordability, availability, and social acceptability of public services. If urbanization grows in an unplanned way requires more investments to extend the current infrastructure or build new ones. Since, in general, cities in developing countries lack sufficient economic resources, it is necessary to maximize the productivity of the current infrastructure to satisfy additional demand. Boosting asset utilization, optimizing maintenance planning, and expanding demand management measures could take advantage of the wasted infrastructure. The local government of Cuenca-Ecuador aims to expand the public transport supply throughout the urban area (77.5% of spatial cover and 92% of population cover in the urban area), using the maximum network capacity. Thus, it requires a holistic and inclusive framework that guarantees the implementation of the project. Studies in urban planning have shown that the productivity of the public transportation network depends on the network and activity systems. The application of actor-network theory demonstrated that the proposed solution (a package of 22 measures related to the transit-oriented development and demand-management measures) is not only necessary but feasible. The analysis allowed identifying ten interested actors and one non-interested actor. Moreover, the method highlights the role of each actor to counteract potential opponents and meet the target by 2030.