Well, that is something I have been thinking of a long time ago. You may wonder why. I think the biggest issues are the following:

1. Lack of training/knowledge of the common international traffic rules. In fact I would say Honduras has “created” his own traffic rules, that if you don’t understand will get you in to trouble.
2. Laws are ussualy not respected. People do whatever they want and nobodyis there (I mean authorities) to give them a ticket. I have even experience how a traffic officer was in front of a Bus stopped at a place that wasn’t a busstop to pick up someone and he did nothing. Asked about it, he told me “I can’t do anything, they ussually have 5 ot 6 tickets already and don’t carry a driver’s licence, si it is useless to give them another one” !!!
3. In general, it is the “state of matters” here, nobody follows the law or rules. Probably heard of thr broken wondows theory, that is what happens here. People see everybody disrespectimg the law, nobody gets catched, starting by the very government functionaries, who are supposed to give the example, so noboby obeys the rules.

What can be done?

Enforce the law.

Don’t let anynody commit any infraction.

Don’t allow traffic officers to receive money.

Start a educational system that really ensures that someone carrying a driver’s licence knows how to participate in the traffic system, everywhere.

Implement a new traffic law that is in accordance with international standards.

Well, I don’t know if that answer your question, ow that I see, you adked about public transit, did you mean public transportation?

Some of this apply specially to that area, they are actually the worse drivers…

The worse thing though about public transportation is the insecurity: you will be robbed many times if you use buses. The taxis are somehow better, but if you happen to be in an illegal one, you are in big trouble, cause nobody knows what can happen…

People with exonomic means use radio-taxis, those called by telephone.

Pros:

1. Cheap
2. They can leave you in whatever place (inside of the route)
3. A lot of route cover the metropolitan area

Cons:

1. Insecurity
2. Leak of education
3. Bad vehicle states
4. Disorganization
5. Use of violence for controlling routes
6. No exists passengers claim institution
7. They drive disrespecting laws

Public transit in metropolitan area of DR is just a chaos. Various reason are main points.

Little or none education of public transit drivers. Drivers of public transportation aren’t educated people. Some of them just have basic education (1–8 grades of primary school). They public transit drivers because that is the unique thing they can do it “honestly”. They don’t have any education (no all of them, just the majority), knowledge about how to improve what they do every day and the behavior is horrible.

There aren’t laws against thinks like (permit that more than 8 passengers go in one vehicle, nobody has seat belt, stopping in not parking areas, etc), if there are some then is not enforced because they have a lot of power (are organized in syndicates)

Government and people in these country are just sleeping and don’t care nothing about making their country better.

How can be transit be improved? Luck with that…

I think that talking seriously with syndicates and make them accomplish laws can be one of the first things for staring seen some improvements.

I think that better cars would be nice to have.

More important point is that drivers should be educated because they drive without any sense of it. (No all of them)

Maybe if the prices are reviewed and they can earn more money can be happier and doing their job better.

Good: Frequent service on many routes.

Bad: Good routes are often very crowded. “Stand in three lines down the center of the bus, please” This also makes getting off the bus difficult, especially if you are riding on a new route and don’t know the landmarks.

I like the transmetro (the green, articulated busway with prepaid stations.

Initially runing from the center of the town to the south, with some extensions to the north having opened up this year.) it is fairly easy to understand, but much of the time it is extremely crowded, to the point where it is impossible to board at many intermediate stations. There used to be a shared payment system with the Transurbano, but now you just use a quetzal coin, so load up on those if you’re planning on using it. The crowds are a pain, but I think they are also an indication of how much demand for the service there is. Personally I wish the transmetro ran to the airport (Once when I had a lot of time before my flight I walked the 3 km from the part of zone 13 where the transmetro goes to the part where the airport entrance is—don’t try to cross from the hangars or air force stations) but I suspect the actual route serves a lot more people. There is a bus (83) which goes close to the airport, but even that one is a pretty good walk from the actual terminal.

The transurbano, (blue and white, single unit buses with a yellow turnstile at the entrance) a system of buses using prepaid cards and supposedly improved shelters itself has been getting a lot of negative coverage recently. I only use it for one thing, which it does pretty well: get me from the northern bus terminal to the center of town (but I see huge lines in the other direction and almost always take a shared taxi (10Q) on the way back). But there are a lot of stories of decaying stops, diversion of funds, etc. This picture is from the northern bus station, Centro Norte, and shows what the buses look like, not what the average, shelter looks like.

It is often difficult for outsiders to figure out where the buses go. I recently found this web site Rutas de las camionetas en la Ciudad de Guatemala which helps, although I can’t vouch for all details being correct.

Regular bus routes can be very good sometimes, but are also often very crowded, and it is often difficult to find indicators of where the stops are, and where they go (other than the big destinations which are usually shouted by the ayudantes).

Also, I know there are problems of buses being robbed (that is one idea behind the various prepaid systems, so they will have less cash on hand) or even firebombed. A lot of the strikes I have heard about were more about safety than wages. I heard more about this a few years ago, though.

Overall using anything beyond the Transmetro requires not just skills in Spanish, but an understanding of the geography of Guatemala City in particular. If you do understand them you can save a lot relative to a taxi ride, or get to a point where your taxi ride is fairly short, so your whole trip is 40+2 Quetzales instead of 140 Quetzales.

Improvements: If the transurbano functioned the way it was designed, with ongoing investment and maintenance. If there was better signage on regular bus routes, and maybe even bus shelters. If the Transmetro weren’t so crowded, but I don’t live in the city, so I’m not sure what the options for that are…Seeing how it bunches I’m not sure you could put more buses on the route and get better headways. If you could stick two together like people do with light rail, that would be great, but I imagine the changes to stations, and need for a different bus design would be cost prohibitive. The advantage of the transmetro is that the busway is a lot cheaper than building a subway, which is sketchy in an earthquake zone anyway. I’d love it if there was transmetro service down the Reforma, both because it would be closer to some places I go, and because it would probably make the existing service two blocks west slightly less crowded. There would be more north-south coverage but the buses wouldn’t run into each other the way they might if you doubled service on the same avenue.

Mostly issues of investment in shelters and rolling stock, but I think more needs to be done about the general culture of corruption before making those investments, or else the money will evaporate like the Transurbano investment did.

The worst thing is the traffic. The traffic is worse than everywhere i have ever seen. They say that the worst traffic of the world is in New Delhi, Jakarta and Sao Paulo, but it’s not there, it’s in Panama City.

I lived in the financial district and most days you cannot get in or out, between 6.30AM and 9PM. During the 2 years i lived there i saw the traffic becoming worse instead of better. The “rush hour” was getting longer and longer.

Yes, the subway is a major improvement, but not so many stations yet.

There are basically just a few gaps in which you can get around with just slow traffic in stead of complete traffic jams: between 09.30AM - 11AM, between 2PM and 3PM and after 9PM (and even then you are at risk for being stuck).

Major issues

• No education about rules on the road, people cutting each other of and causing accidents. Road rage.
• Many people buy a fake driver’s licence from someone they know instead of actually having to study for it to learn the rules
• Too much cars in general. People love cars. The first thing people buy here is a car, they might still live with their parents or have no food to eat, possessing a car is more important
• People waiting for the police for up to 3 hours after an accident, causing traffic jams as they don’t move their vehicle
• Random controls by police looking for drugs, causing lines and traffic jams
• People ignoring traffic lights, traffic lights not working, people crossing the street and stopping traffic because there’s no way to cross the street
• People parking their cars everywhere, even on roads, which narrows down certain roads
• No urban planning or any automated system to keep the traffic going. The government doesn’t think in bottlenecks or solutions, if they see a busy road they think “let’s build more roads” while the modern urban planning solution would be to analyse the issue, have a new onramp or make sure the traffic lights are working (green wave system for example)
• Police does not give fines to people that do not obey traffic rules, it is possible to bribe the police. Police often does not know rules themselves nor do they care. Ignoring a red light is common, zebras don’t work
• No separate bus lanes (or at least none that are really working)

I wrote this article on the topic too: 8 sugerencias para mejorar el tráfico. NO: más carreteras no es una solución - The Panama Observer

I know your question was about public transport, but the public transport won’t advance without some of the issues above being solved first….

The public transportation system is fantastic. The bus system ( Colectivo) will take you anywhere you need to go . With internet access, you can use an app to get the right bus line in seconds. Start and finish destinations. Clean and safe.

The subway system covers the major part of the city. It's clean and safe. Rush hour can be very crowded, but crime is very rare. I use the subway when I need to be somewhere on time. It can be quite hot in some of the older line stations in the summer.

Then there is the train system to get further out of the city. Which is also clean, efficient and safe. You use the same card for all three systems. The only improvement I can see would be fewer cars and more busses.

And if you want a taxi, they are everywhere and cheap. I love not having to own a car. After growing up in the States where life without a car is next to impossible.

I am Guatemalan - USA citizen. Lived in Guatemala 25 years of my life. I knew that since the tenure of the Engineer Raul Aguilar Batres as head of Engineers in the capital city about fifty years ago, existed plans for a Light electric train. The routes were perfectly planned and the use of bridges and aqueducts were included. The corruption has never let that project to be implemented like more major capitals in the world have done. As consequence the historical center of the capital (zona uno, zona cuatro, zona nueve and around) has been strangled by traffic and street markets and become an image of an ugly dystopian world. It’s horrible how beautiful places where we used to go and hang around with friends three or four decades ago are completely different image of what internationally was recognized like one of the cleanest and beautiful capitols of the world: “La tacita de plata”

Pros

• public transport will get you almost everywhere within a 20–30 km radius from the city centre;
• individual tickets are fairly cheap compared to other cities (~0.5 USD)

Cons

• to get from one end of the city to the centre or to the other end will take you a lot of time if you don’t choose your mode of transportation wisely. Usually fastest are subways and trains - which is why they are very crowded during rush hours
• subways only operate in the inner city, not the suburbs; from there, you only get into the city with one of several commuter train lines. These operate in a star like fashion and terminate at different points in the city (similar to Gare du Nord, Gare d’Austerlitz, Gare Montparnasse, Gare St.Lazare in Paris), so you can’t go easily from one end of the city to the other.
• the trains mostly cut through the city above ground with lots of railway crossings blocking car traffic especially during the rush hours. These are very accident prone because people get anxious to cross and block the barriers from going all the way down, so they can slip through, sometimes getting hit by a train.
• most bus lines are operated by independent (and highly subsidized) private companies, there is not one overarching public transport company operating buses, trains and subways
• that’s the reason why, if you switch buses or from bus to train/subway, you have to pay again; if you have to switch more than once you might end up paying a lot
• there is also no such thing as a monthly or yearly ticket with which you can use all of the transport system for a fixed price
• to complicate things even more, also the subway and train lines apparently operate independently of one another up to a point; at least the employees all seem to have their individual unions which might lead to strikes just on line B and D, but normal traffic on the other ones (or vice versa). Most subway stations therefore have a sign at the entrance indicating which lines - if any - don’t operate at the moment. It’s hard to keep track of that from home though, so you can plan your trip accordingly
• sometimes the employees of individual bus, train or subway lines will also go on strike because of an incident in which one of their colleagues got hurt (eg. armed robbery). This is completely unpredictable and can leave you stranded any time.

Improvements

There have been several in the past years already, e.g.

• instead of having to pay cash, in 2012 the whole system started to accept a prepaid card (SUBE) which even allows you some credit if you didn’t get to recharge it on time; most locals have one and using it is highly recommendable, because not only don’t you need small cash (usually lots of coins), the transport prices also are lower by 50% (at least that’s what it was when they started, not sure now)
• since building new subway lines is very costly, the city government installed so called Metrobuses on several high traffic avenues. These have their own lanes at least for parts of their routes and thus can be much speedier than individual traffic. They block car traffic of course (which might be intentional up to a point)

My wishlist:

• more tunnels or bridges at railway crossings or - better yet - place the trains above or below ground entirely
  Update: this is about to become a reality at least for parts of the trains that cut through the city. Two enormous projects along the Belgrano and San Martín lines will be inaugurated by late April 2019 apparently.
• connect the individual train station terminals (Retiro, Once, Constitución) not just by subway but make trains go through the whole city
• improve the possibility to do park & ride for people who don’t live nearby a train station especially in the outskirts, so less people try to enter the city with their cars
• offer monthly tickets for all public transport instead of having to pay individually for every bus or train you take
• at least at rush hours offer double decker trains to accommodate the enormous amount of people travelling at the same time
• repair and refit the rails on both trains and subways so they can operate at higher speed; right now you might jump up and down and get thrown into your peers at certain points if the motorman doesn’t slow down

Dominican Republic has a lot of great things but public transportation is not one of them. You see public transit here is very controversial , for example we have a Metro but it only reaches a part of Santo Domingo not all of it. We have ‘carritos publicos’ and ‘guaguas’.

These are cool. we don’t have to wait in an specific place ,like a bus stop,for the transport to arrive, we can also ask them to drop us off where we desire we don't have to wait for a stop in the route.

The best thing : It’s cheap as fuck. 25DP for carritos and guaguas and 20 DP for metro (Approx: 50 cents)

The worst thing: You can get crammed! unless you choose to pay double which I sometimes do.

Example: In the carrito which is just a regular car form the 1970s we have the driver, two people in the passenger seat ad four in the back. That’s how full it an get! in the guagua which is like a bus we have people hanging from the outside of the door when it’s really full.4

What can improve : Paying the drivers as employees(You see, some of these drivers don’t even have health insurance because they are not official employees they just pay a certain fee or drive that route and keep the rest they make. I don’t think that’s correct.)

One of the best things is its flexibility. The system is comprised of public cars (think of uber share, but with routes rather than point to point transportation), public buses (this is what the city officially provides for transportation), private buses(called flyers, people buy small buses and carry passengers along a route), and what I’ll call private buses plus (basically a high quality version of what public bus transportation should be). Because of all its component parts, and the adhoc nature of the beast, the system is very resilient and flexible. If enough people want to go from one place to another, and these people are located along some route, then nobody is stopping anybody from opening a route that could cover these needs. Cab drivers are quick to unionize too, which is a good thing when it comes to organizing how the routes are delimited. I’ll omit motorcycles since, at least in the DN, their usage has been steadily declining for years.

One of the worst things about the system is its lack of synergy among its members, and a tyrannic monopoly the cabbies’ unions have. These people are known to be violent when their needs aren’t met, even going as far as damaging private property and harming people. Because anybody with a car or bus can start working, there’s little quality control when it comes to safety and environmental remediation.

It could be improved by better coordination among the participants. They may redistribute the system to make large buses cover the main veins between points in the city, and the smaller buses and cars to fill in the gaps. Quality control is also greatly needed. Cars are usually in pretty bad shape, and emit plenty of pollution. All in all, it’s an interesting beast.

I think Mafer Gomez was talking about public transportation; if that’s what you meant then I agree with most of what she says. On the other hand, if you are talking about public transit in a broader way I would say the following:

Best:

• There are very good public transportation means, like the “Metropolitano”, or the “Metro” (train), which are fast and have a considerable reach. They are currently being improved by adding even a bigger reach, which is awesome.
• Again about public transportation, there are two systems in Lima: the public one offered by Municipality of Lima, and the private one, which is offered by a variety of transportation business and that cover the parts that are not coveted by Municipality of Lima’s system. The latter is, as Maria said, very cheap, fast and goes pretty much everywhere.

Worst:

• Many, many drivers don’t respect the “pedestrian first” rule, so watch out. Some of them can be rude.
• Crazy driving: always cross the roads with your eyes on your left, because you never know when a fast bus (of the private transportation system, which makes sense since they are competing with others for passengers), motorcycle or any car will hit you. Also check on your right at least once because some drivers go against traffic.
• Crazy pedestrians: many people, including me sometimes, cross the road in any part of it, not by zebra crossings. Sometimes it goes well, sometimes it goes bad.
• If you drive, have insurance. If a car crashes yours, there are very good odds it will just run away.
• Bottlenecks: you don’t want to be in one of these, but if you drive you will. They happen mostly in principal avenues. I estimate they start at 8 a.m., 12:30 p.m. And 7 p.m. With the time the stress will feel second nature.

Overall I think the public transit is bearable, but you have to be very attentive of things happening around you. Lima is very worthy of visiting (some parts of the city of course, just like Paris). Oh! I almost forgot, careful about taxis; better have your Uber, Easy Taxi or Taxibeat apps, if you are a foreigner that will avoid you of being overcharged with price or even robbed.

Cheers!

The real issues are…

Transportation is more than a decade long issue and a Mayor’s term is only 3 years. It’s not impossible to solve BUT really hard.

First, you have people especially the masses who have so many opinions but do not actually know how the dynamics of the government and the transportation department works. Hence, you have so many empty opinions and ideas (not all are bad but mostly are ideas based on really small info on the matter)

Second, uneducated drivers. In Gensan as long as you can drive, you can have a tricycle. Yes, the authorities will pull you over, but they aren’t that many to pull a hundred rouge unlicensed drivers who can’t read traffic signs.

There is already a fix tariff for how much a driver should ask a commuter. Two things, no strict implementation. Still hard headed drivers who would take advantage just to get rich quick.

Third, the modernization program of the government for the transportation department is not easy and would take time as it involves so many offices and protocols. This is what the vast majority do not know. As for the moment, if you remove the tricycles, the commuters suffer especially those who go home late at night. So, it’s a compromise as of the moment until the government finishes the modernization program.

Yes, there are so many good things in gensan. Tricycles aren’t one of them.

Pros:

• Buses start running at 5:00 AM. Good for students and other people who have to be early at work.
• Reliable. At least every half hour a bus comes by the bus stop.
• Cheap. Depending on where you’re going, it can cost from $1.00 to $1.75 if you stay within Caguas. Buses that leave town can cost up to $3.00 more or less.

Cons:

• Buses stop running at 4, 5, or 6 PM (too early) depending on the bus driver.
• Some buses have air conditioning but most of them don’t. Puerto Rico, especially Caguas, is hot. Taking a bus with no air conditioning at noon is ungodly.
• Crowded. There’s always a bunch of old, smelly people, with the exception of students.
• If the bus is too crowded one of two things can happen. Either they stop and you’ll have to squish your way in, or they pass by you and you’ll have to wait for the next one.

The system would be better if the buses were bigger and with air conditioning, if there was a way to track them to know when they’ll be passing the bus stop as there are times where you have to wait for more than 30 minutes (depending on their route), and by making the same start and ending time for all the buses (would be very helpful if there were buses until like 8:00 PM at least).

Overall, even though it needs improvement, it is reliable. Nevertheless, it’s my last choice of transport. If someone else can take me to my destination, or if I have money for an Uber, I rather go with either of those.

I’m not a transportation expert, far from it. But here’s my take of the pros and cons of the current status of public transportation in my home town.

Frequency and routes are abundant. Great app by the local government lets you figure out which bus to take from point A to point B. App in Android or App Store: ComoIr

Some bus routes are almost always overcrowded, they simply allow too many people standing. It causes all sorts of problems, including pick pocketing.

Despite having a schedule, buses rarely are on schedule, also creating long wait lines.

I honestly don’t know how public transit could be improved without a gigantic investment, like a subway, or a system similar to the Transmilenio in Bogota.

Regarding the organization and urban planning of the city, Aguascalientes is one of the best cities in Mexico for driving, its streets are kept accesible and relatively fast from and towards any place inside the city, the 3 peripheric rings allows cars to move around the city avoiding concentration of the traffic in the same Avenue, synch of the green lights allows you to move along tracks of streets and avenues without stoping and respecting max. speed, even encouraging legal levels, since the synch only works around certain speed.

Unfortunately, the state is one of the top 7 most cars per family cities, so lately, along the development of the city and the increase on car numbers, the urban planning has been developed considering a large number of families that have car and the amount of cars they have per each. With the time, the city and its street have grown to be “car-friendly” but not “public transport-friendly”. The way from my house to my university in early morning can get to be as little as a 15 minute drive, or as long as a 1 hour and a half bus ‘trip’.

Few people (in comparison to other states, and using Mexican standards for public transport public spenditure per user) using the public transport have underlighted the importance to update public policies regarding public transport, so there are not a lot of bus lines around the city, and for most of the actual bus lines, the waiting time for them is not as confortable as in first world cities or bigger mexican cities such as Gdl, Mty or CDMX.

Upsides?
In comparison to other cities, Aguascalientes public transport is cheap.
If your destination is near one of the peripheric rings, you only have to take one bus and you’ll be there.

My recommendation?
Use Taxi service or Uber. They’re actually very good.
In other cities, taxis or ubers would be very costly, or at least more than what you would be accepting to pay, but the car friendly city makes any trip fast and “short”, so you do not end up paying that much.
Example; I used to live outside the city, 1 kilometer outside the 3rd ring north of the city. Arriving from the bus central station at the south of the city, on the 1st ring south of the city. A trip from there to my house in uber, it takes 25 minutes to get to my house for a 15 km track and paid only $65 MXN ( $3.25 USD)
The same track by bus (very very luckily) can be done only with one bus line, waiting time from 25~45 minutes to get it, and after that, taking around 1 hour to arrive to the other side of the city, on the 3rd ring north of the city, and after that a 15 minute walk to my house. but of course, paying only $7 MXN.

So uber does it 9 times the price but in 1/5th of the time than the bus.

If you don’t mind waiting the bus, you have time and stuff, then the bus is highly recommended since at the end, they are totally safe, sometimes overcrowded but only in business days at peak hours, and they are ugly for European standards but if you have used Puebla or Toluca’s public transport, you will find Aguascalientes’ one actually quite nice.

Public transportation in San José is beyond terrible. Best things: cheap, and frequent (city center). Worst things: poor information (unreliable frequency, unclear bus stops, no maps), few routes (especially in rural areas, and more affluent neighbourhoods), and poor distribution. The government has done nothing much to improve transportation for the past years for the reasons below.

Causes and how to improve it?

1. Corruption. The Ministry of Transport Commission of Public Transport board is comprised by current transport company owners who represent their own benefits and do not want to tender new and more efficient routes. The way to improve this is to set up a new comission and finance transportation demand/supply feasibility studies to tender new routes.
2. Hyperlegal disfuncional legal system. Tenders of new lines have been sabotaged by “Recursos de Amparo” that claim irregularities in the process. “Recursos de Amparo” refers to a legal tool citizens can present at the “Sala Cuarta” (eg. Common law equivalent of the highest court) to revise the execution of public law enforcement. For instance the tendering process of “Interlineas” - intersectorial bus routes around the periphery of the city were in tendering stage for more than ten years. The solution is a mechanism where public interests can be put into a fast track legal process.
3. Poor local governance. Local governments have no power to design or tender a bus route. Bus routes are regulated by the government and need to have an official tendering process. Governance is difficult at a country level specially in remote rural regions away from the capital.

Many of the units are in poor condition, and many drivers are unskillful. I don’t think there are any regulations to restrict who can get a license—pay the fee and you’re in. Interurban bus drivers are notably better.

Bus fairs are relatively high when compared to other areas of Mexico—much higher than in Mexico City, and higher than in Guadalajara.

Due to the layout of the city, the bus routes are confusing. They overlap in some areas and ignore others. It can be difficult to make a round trip or to connect to another route.

One thing that would be easy to change is to end the circling of the ALM market. Entrance is from the west and exit is to the east. On the west side, traffic then goes south, while it goes north on the east side. Buses, or rutas, should be able to enter and exit from either side. This would save both time and money, and it would cut down on congestion.

What are the best and worst things about public transit in Santiago, Chile? How could it be improved?

As a foreigner living in Santiago, and having visited several other countries with better and worse public transit systems, I think there are a couple of pointers I can give.

Best:

• Unified public transport system. You use a single card (Bip) that lets you hop on any Transantiago vehicle, including buses (micro), subway (metro), and tram (metrotren). You can make three trips for one payment, as long as they are made within a span of 2 hours, and you can combine any type of vehicle as long as only 1 subway and 1 tram are used (Bus-Bus-Subway, Tram-Bus-Subway, Bus-Bus-Bus, etc.).
• Apps for public transport. You can install apps to check bus stops, subway entrances, routes, and incoming buses. Pretty useful if you don’t know whether a certain bus goes the way you want to go, or if you want to find out which bus-subway-walking combination you need to get somewhere. Most tell you (or show you on a map) where a bus is, and how long it will take to get to you.
• Well defined bus stops and subway entrances. These stops were designed with love. They show you (as long as they haven’t been vandalized) which buses pass at that particular stop, and which buses pass by nearby stops. Some even include maps, which really helps to plan trips when you don’t know exactly where you are going. Metro stations have these huge red signs, unmissable if you are at night.

Worst

• Subway hell on rush hour. Santiago’s subway gets rushed by thousands of people on rush hours, to the point in which they deny access to the stations due to crowding. There are only two rails on all lines, so only one train at the time can go into each direction. Thus, people push, punch, tackle, and I-kid-you-not, bite their way into metro cars to get to work or home early. You can be stuck waiting two, three, or more trains before you manage to get into one, earning your place by fighting your way in… and all of this while the train traveling in the opposite direction goes almost empty.
• Some bus drivers are dicks. I travel a lot at early morning, when few buses are in transit. If you lose a bus, you can be waiting an indefinite time for the next one, which is not good when you are on a schedule. Thus, when a driver decides to ignore you and take off without you or decides you are not worth the effort of doing what they are paid for and stopping to get you, you have all the right to be pissed. Luckily, you can denounce these rogue drivers, and companies do take actions to improve their services.
• Bus timing is awful. For some reason, buses tend to crowd into caravans in Santiago. Instead of having a bus pass every 10 minutes, you get 4 buses of the same line one right after the other, and then no buses for 40 minutes. It’s not a big issue when you have options (other buses going in the same general direction), but it is awful when there are only one or two lines and you watch them all pass like a parade as you approach the stop.

How to improve

• Limit the amount of private vehicles. There are simply too many private vehicles for the population of Santiago. Some families have 2, 3, even 4 different cars, one for each member of a family. This makes the streets too crowded, causing heavy traffic, affecting public transport as well. This also explains the subway crowding in rush hour; people prefer fighting to the death to enter a tuna can, than waiting forever in a bus among the traffic.
• Force schedules on public transport. Something that can’t be done because of traffic. But it’s necessary, to allow for flexibility. I remember my time at Germany; I lost a train because I got to the pad 30 seconds late, but managed to catch my connection by taking other combinations that got me there in the same time. No biggie. Here, you lose a bus, you start sweating wondering whether it was the first of the caravan, or the last… and go check your app to find how many minutes for the next bus.

Best things about public transit in Lima:

• it's very cheap
• there are various options, not just one that you have to wait for an schedule
• they go very fast
• they stop everywhere( this can be a con or a benefit cuz they can leave you where you literally want to go or they can delay your trip because of this)

worst things about public transit in Lima:

• the bus is fill more than their capacity, so can be very uncomfortable
• sometimes it smells bad because there it's a lot of people on it
• in most cases, the “"cobrador ( the one who charges the ticket) doesn't accept your university card (you have a special tariff).
• the music, not All drivers, but in many cases the have their music super loud.

information by experience

Good thing:

• Extremely cheap. VND5000/ride for short routes (under 18km); VND6000/ride for long routes (18km and above). That’s around 20–30 cents (USD).

Bad things:

• Almost always late. Understandably so, given the traffic.
• Terrible customer service.
• Terrible driving, almost to the point of endangering other vehicles on the streets.
• Buses are so big that they make traffic jams worse, especially during rush hours.

Solutions: (Disclaimer: I’m neither an urban planner nor a government official, so these are complete speculations.)

• Cut the short routes around city downtown, to reduce delays and bad traffic effects.
• Increase fares for better services and staffing.
• Use smaller buses.
• Re-train bus drivers.

The best thing are the buses, plentiful and cheap and always an interesting ride. You get a lot of people coming on to sing, beg, sell sweets - the situation isn’t cool that they’re in and I wish them much success and happiness but on one journey there was a Pedro Suarez Vertiz impersonator who came on and gave us a few of his hits (he even looked like him) which earn him a few soles from me. Most of the time, they just come on and give you their life story ‘My dad died of drugs and my mum is in prison, please help me’.

The worst are the fucking taxis - for some reason, there are no meters and though we have honest taxi drivers there are some dangerous people driving taxis - fine if you’re local because you know what to look out for but gringos and tourists are taking a risk riding in them - there are honest ones, there are thieves and there are the dishonest who will overcharge or try offloading fake money on you - riding taxis off the street in Peru needs Spanish and to have your wits about you, and you negotiate the fare before you get in.

My advice to anyone in Lima for an extended period of time is learn the bus routes and give them a go, you will save lots of money and it’s more fun to get around.

NB: How to improve it? We have linea uno of the Lima Metro, we need Linea dos up ASAP and get the remaining four lines built, this will help with the traffic congestion problem. Completing linea dos will go a long way to improving things.

(Talking about the bus service)

Best things:

• Relatively low prices.
• Variety of bus-stops to choose.
• Metrobus bus-stops with night artificial lightening and protection from rain, added to some seats to use while queuing and free wi-fi (BA wifi).
• Many bus lines with different routes.
• Many more.

Worst things:

• Buses sometimes get delayed by up to half an hour.
• Strikes are not uncommon and can cause a pause to the service without warning.
• The bus may not stop in some bus-stops if it is full.
• Factor linked to the one above: It Gets Full So Fast. Between 7:00 and 10:00 hours, and between 16:00 and 20:00, it is hard to catch on an empty (meaning with free seats) bus. The worst is that it often gets so full you can not get off the bus.
• Human odour and (BA is known for its heat) Summer heat + human heat equals being sweaty and smelling as the bus does.

I hope this helps. I do not know if the same goes with the bus service in other countries, but I think in most countries it is similar. If you are in doubt or need further answers do not hesitate to ask.

Best things :

None

( Actually there was one thing that was okay. I had to take night classes for a course and since it was a public school I could take free pass during night time, and it helped me to save some cash )

Worst things:

• Like any other emerging city, it's impossible to use it on rush hours.
• Sometimes the cashier doesn't let you pass if you don't have coins to make the change easier for him ( personal experience ).
• Sometimes the bus driver runs so fast that you jump a few centimeters , even if you are sit.

Improvements :

• Create a subway system that connects the whole ABC region ( you can add SP too ).
• Make a line on the road exclusively for bus drivers on some avenues ( E.G. av brigadeiro faria de lima )

There are two types of taxis in El Salvador. The actually registered taxis with “A” plates (A for Alquiler, meaning that are cars for rent Transport) have usually been safe, but nowadays you can't totally trust them. It's usually recommended to hire cabs from known companies (usually cooperatives of taxi drivers) that you can call by phone. It's better not to pick a cab right from the street unless is in a Hotel or the airport.

The other type of taxis are unlicensed and illegal (we call the “piratas” for pirates) that are regular cars with “P” plates (P stands for particular, meaning that they are cars for private use). These are not necessary always dangerous but it's better not to use them. Ironically there are taxis “piratas” in the taxi companies as well.

The transportation department has usually been very poor enforcing the law regarding taxi licensing so there way more illegal taxis that legal ones.

There's also Uber here, so it's probably better to use it.

Best: It’s cheap and you don’t have to wait long since there’re a lot of busses and cabs.

Worst: there are no good service standards, they do pretty much whatever they want (busses) they stop wherever and whenever they want and don’t respect the transport rules most of the time.

Improvement: the routes should change, (too many busses on small streets) also they should be forbbidden to pick passengers up in any other place than the bus stop( there should be bus stops in the first place) they should be forbbidden to stop when the traffic light is green, my god!! There should be schedules or gps tracking in order to know when the bus is arriving.

I dont know traffic in Leon but I do know traffic in Mexico City. Heres my list:

Develop public mail: most people move back and forth to run errands that could easily be handled by standarf mail. This however is not possible due to the fact that government decided to guve up mail in favor of private mailing which is very expensive. In the us people use mail all day long to pay bills, deliver stuff. In Mexico mail checks get stolen.

Standardize local schools: traffic drops to 40% when schools are on vacation. People go acctoss town to drop and pick up students because they go to “better schools” that are far away. Safe school bus routes and standard local schools would solve this.

Enforce truck load regulation: most traffic is generated from delivery trucks in and out of the city all day long.

regulate housing: at least 30% of housing is vacant and at the same time more in city building permits every year. Penalize vacancy to occupy or transform unused buildings and reduce traffic

Connected infrastructure: most subways stations dont have parking lots and connected systems (drive to point x, from there take the bus) this optimizes traffic loads

Manage subsidies: in Mexico middle and upper middle class people dont take the subway despite being very fast and extended. It is viewed as not comfortable. On the other hand excessive subsidies help most people move around in public transit but resources do not meet some standards so a midpoint to improve quality of public transit is in discussion

This was improved with…

This - Panama Metro System