Colectivo
A colectivo is a public transportation unit invented in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in the 1920s. Originally colectivos were small buses built out of taxi chassis, that grew (with their own picturesque style) in capacity and relevance until 1990, when the urban fleet was mostly modernized. The history of the traditional Argentine colectivo is strongly related to the Mercedes Benz corporation in this country.
Origins
In the 1900s Argentina was the "Granary of the World", one of the first world food producers and exporters, and a wealthy country. The streets of the prosperous Buenos Aires (with 2 millon inhabitants) exploded soon with cars (16 units as soon as 1901, and already 377 in 1905). Commercial relations with the United Kingdom (trade in meat and grains, basically), also brought a myriad of investors and enterprises in the 1920s: cars, trains, tramways, taxis and public buses (even the traditional British ones of two levels).
But in 1929 the world economic crisis hit, and the local cab owners claimed for a radical switch. They modified their taxi units, widening the back seats to allow more than one passenger per trip, and established pre-defined itineraries and stops, at a lowered price per passenger (five per trip). Every day, deliberately, the drivers challenged the "real" public buses and electrical tramways, parking near them in the most populated stations and driving close to them during the day to pick up their passengers. Soon the crowds started to prefer these colectivos, and the original buses and tramways disappeared from Buenos Aires because of them. That is how the original Argentine colectivo (a. k. a. taxi colectivo, taxi bus, micro bus) was born.
In the 1930s, the size of the colectivo units started growing, up to a dozen seats. But the picturesque lines of the external unit chassis designs remained as in the original styles, which were kept until the 1970s and 1980s (when the units already had twenty seats).
Mercedes Benz
The second part of the history of the colectivo is related to Mercedes Benz, because this became the brand of practically all the units in Argentina between 1950 and 1990.
During the 1950s, after World War II, Argentine industry started to develop again (this situation would not last long). The country's public transport system was obsolete, almost never updated from the original, and on top of that the train system was not enough for the rising demands of the population.
Since 1951 Mercedes Benz established factories in Argentina, including the first factory outside Germany (in the town of San Martín, near Buenos Aires), as well as one in González Catán, and began production of a large amount of trucks and cars. The output of those industries rised soon to 600 units of trucks and also public transportation vehicles. In less than a decade the output was 6500 annual units. Mercedes released updates to the local colectivo models, naming them Colectivo LO 3500, 0P 3500, L0 311, L0 312, etc. In 1963 Mercedes built 10,000th colectivo (model LO 312), and continued with other models, such as L 1112 (120 HP), LA 1112 (traction in all wheels), L 1114, etc.
Fileteados
The general look of the Mercedes units was more sophisticated than the original taxi buses, but the lines of the chassis were still given artistical finish touches in the classical style.
Buenos Aires colectivo owners employed many colorful combinations to identify each one of the bus companies (called líneas and numbered with up to 3 digits: 24, 63, 60, 151, 152, etc.), and artistic details to decorate the inside, around the driver's seat: long wide mirrors with windings (fileteado) and common motifs such as football, religious icons and tango. The outside of the units was also painted with fileteado, flower motifs, national flags, and football team flags (blue-yellow for Boca Juniors, white-red for River Plate, etc.).
Argentine culture
The cultural roots of the "porteños" (inhabitants of the city Buenos Aires) placed it during many years (mainly until were modernized in the 90s) as one of their distinctive ícons, together with the "Obelisco" building in Buenos Aires, and the fanatism for Soccer teams. As example, the (semi-official, because was propagandist) movie "La fiesta de todos", after the victory of the World cup of soccer 1978, was forced to take one of their key stories to inside a colectivo.
With the world cultural explosion of Argentina after the 80s, in films and even intellectual, the colectivos became somehow recognizable as one of the best examples of mass transport from Occident. Quite similar to the two-floored ones of London and the NYC subways.
Modernization
The tradition of Mercedes Benz colectivos started to fade in the 1990s, when El Detalle, one of the subsidiaries of Mercedes, decided to compete with it, investing in low price and modern urban buses, with cheaper Deutz motors. Buenos Aires switched to standard buses, of the type found in most other metropolitan areas of the world, keeping only the distinctive colors of the companies and their numbering.
As of 2005, Mercedes Benz units account only for half of the buses in the Greater Buenos Aires, with units built in Rosario, but also some in Brazil (MarcoPolo and others). The other half are El Detalle units. (Mercedes Benz has also lost the overall transportation truck market in Argentina, to brands like Scania, Iveco, and others.)
Usage in Buenos Aires
The frequency of the colectivos in the city of Buenos Aires would be equal to a powerful system of subways of other cities, but on wheels. Turning to any corner in the city, it is possible to sight a colectivo, with it's colorings (in Buenos Aires there are not 2 "lineas" of colored colectivos of the same combination of colors). With very economic prices of tickets, all the social classes use it at least 2 times per day.
See also
Sources
- Los Colectivos' History (Spanish)
- Buses Rosario (Spanish)
- Mercedes Benz's auto history (Spanish)