Bogota Begs for British Buses
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Says Harold Champion
/RETURNED from my first visit to Bogota, that South American city perched 8,600 ft. up on a plateau of the Andes, with mixed feelings. There is a people with an almost embarrassing admiration for Britain and the British— a people who like to send their children to school here and complete their professional studies at British Universities, who prefer British methods and British goods. yet because of economic pressures from within and (dare 1 say it?) from North America are unable to do much about it.
The British Overseas Airways Corporation. who have started a weekly Britannia service from London to Bogota via Bermuda. Trinidad and Caracas. have quickened appetites for British 'methods and equipment in Colombia's capital city. "BOAC," they will tell you, pronouncing it as one syllable. " are so correct, so punctual, so reliable."
Buses–:–Not Battleships There is an ardent desire for British buses and goods vehicles which, unless we are prepared to do business on a fairly unorthodox basis, is unlikely to be satisfied_ Colombia is just about recovering from the effects of a spendthrift dictatorship. Up to some five years ago, the government seemed more inclined to spend money on battleships than buses.
Now a democratic regime has comp into power and is trying to pick up the pieces. The fact remains, however, that no vehicles have been legitimately imported for at least four years (although a few have come across from Venezuela without benefit of Customs), and all transport. private and public, is run down.
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One authoritative source gave me the figure of $100m. as the probable total Colombia would need to spend on vehicles of all kinds to bring public and private transport up to date. The dollars, by the way, are American.
In Bogota there are 11 bus undertakings. The most important is municipally owned, the Empresa Distrital de Transportes Urbanos. The others consist of small enterprises—private owners of one or two (seldom more) vehicles, often driven by the owner himself. The municipal undertaking, who operate all over this city of more than I population, run 200 Biissing diesel. buses, none of more recent date than 1955, three 1948 Macks and 28 trolleybuses. The Btissings were specially built for Bogota and accommodate 70 passengers, 30 seated and 40 standing.
They are crewed by a driver and conductor and there is a flat-rate fare of 15 centavos. Taking the Colombian peso as roughly 20-=£1, this works out at about 2d. But the exchange fluctuates. I suppose the internal value of 15 centavos is about.2d. or 3d.
The drivers and conductors work an eight-hour shift for a wage of 14 pesos per day. As far as I could see, there is what amounts to a round-the-clgek service. At any rate, two shifts a day are worked. Bogota, like many South American cities, is late going to bed. A total of 102,019 passengers is transported every day.
I inquired if any female conductors were employed. This was greeted at the head office with a gale of laughter. I had forgotten that "conductor," when translated into Colombian Spanish, means driver. But it appeared as unthinkable that a Colombian woman would collect fares as that she would drive! Life, I might add, is pretty tough in some quarters of Bogota, though the business and residential sections are up to date.
Only the municipal undertaking limits the hours of work of driver and conductor. Private enterprise works all the time!
Routes arc regulated by the secretary of the municipal transit committee. Newcomers appeal to him for licences to operate, but the scales are considerably weighted in favour of the municipal organization. Private operators pay an average of 80 pesos per annum per vehicle in tax. The publicly owned enterprise pays nothing. Fuel costs less than the equivalent of Is. a gallon.
Rigid import restrictions have involved a most astonishing make-do-and-mend undertaking. I saw many scores of old vehicles awaiting the fate of cannibalization. There they were on a big parking space waiting to be devoured by less decrepit buses still capable of digesting a few nuts and bolts and vital engine parts. A limited quantity of spares may now be imported: nevertheless, every month 12 buses are reconstructed by cannibalization.
100 New Biissings
What of future purchases overseas? I was told that although the municipality would prefer to obtain Mack vehicles because of their great passenger capacity, their heavy fuel consumption precluded them. Now a deal between the Colombian and German Governments has been concluded by which 100 new 95 b.h.p. Biissings are to be bought by barter—German buses for Colombian coffee.
I understand that business is also being done, or is desired to be done, with Leyland. Technicians and equipment are said to be going out to Colombia to refit U.S. White vehicles with Leyland engines. If this is in fact so, and whether the British are to be paid with coffee, cotton or real hard cash, I was unable to confirm.
So far as I could judge it is only the Germans who, anxious to get into every possible South American market by every possible means, are happy about entering into barter deals. I am not so sure that the Bogota authorities are so desperately keen on acquiring Biissings. Apparently one of the more serious troubles afflicting these vehicles under Colombian conditions was that the chassis tended to break.
Colombia, for cultural as well as economic reasons, is now most anxious to step up her tourist industry. The Government feel that the nation has been too long out of the main stream of affairs, and that the rest of the world knows far too little about this amazing country, with its vastly varied scenery, elegant cities and many climates.
Tourist Development
You start in a temperate climate in Bogota, and as you descend to the coast you pass-through every variant from sub tropical to completely tropcial. Now. of course, tourist development is somewhat hampered by the lack of adequate coaches.
I saw one or two Mercedes-Benz coaches of modern design, and there is a number of somewhat time-expired Volkswagen Microbuses. These also ply in the city as buses-cum-taxis at a flat fare of 20 centavos.
The chief cities—including, of course, Bogota--have well-surfaced roads and there is a number of reasonably good highways linking important centres. But the country is Andean, be it remembered, and transport is correspondingly difficult outside the populated areas.
observed one interesting and ambitious piece of road construction in the very centre of Bogota, right outside the de luxe Tequendama Hotel. Here an underpass is being made to facilitate swift road communication between the city centre and the El Dorado international airport.
From the many talks I had with influential people in Bogota' and elsewhere, I have no doubt whatever that if goodwill were all that is required Colombia would buy British in a big way. Our cars are preferred to American because of size and economy. The same is true of heavy vehicles too.
But above all, Colombians like the British—they like our way of life and our methods of doing business. They trust us. But there is that currency difficulty. If we could—or would— barter vehicles, spare parts and so on, at least in part, against typical Colombian products such as coffee, the market would be ours for the asking.
Of course, the Germans think it well worth white. But then, unlike the British, they are not content to sit with folded hands and see the South American subcontinent in general and Colombia in particular slip out of their economic sphere of influence.