Making TransJakarta a World Class BRT System - ITDP | Institute for ...

capability to do it, but they are not volunteering to do it without further payment. The
equipment supplier was not made liable for system failures or for fixing and maintaining
the system.
III.2. International Experience with Different Ticketing System
Institutional Structures
Problems with the ticketing system are not unique to TransJakarta. Institutional
arrangements vary widely from system to system, with different benefits and risks.
Most systems have the following components:
o The manager of the money (usually a bank or money manager)
o The equipment provider
o The ticket provider
o The ticketing system operator
o The transit authority or its parent agency
How these functions are related institutionally depends upon the technical competence of
the transit authority or its parent agency, the level of concern about corruption, the type
of system desired, and the need for financing it with private money.
It is fairly standard for the manager of the money, the equipment provider, and the ticket
provider to be closely associated, while the ticketing system operator is separate. This
allows the equipment provider/financial manager to monitor the ticketing system operator
to avoid corruption.
In the case of TransMilenio in Bogota, the ticketing system was done through a unique
Build-Operate Transfer model. In this case, there was a competitive tender for a single
company to both procure the ticketing system equipment and operate the ticketing
system. The company that won this tender, Angelcom SA, both selected and paid for the
ticketing equipment, and operates the system. The contract signed was between
TransMilenio and Angelcom, not between the Department of Transport or the
Department of Public Works and Angelcom. Angelcom in turn receives a fixed
percentage of the revenues from TransMilenio. A third company was contracted by
TransMilenio to be responsible for managing the revenue once collected. All fare
revenue in TransMilenio is placed by the operator into a Trust Fund, and this company
managed the TransMilenio Trust Fund on behalf of all the parties with a vested interest in
the fair and accurate division of this revenue: TransMilenio, the trunk line operators, the
feeder bus operators, and the ticketing system operator.
This Built-Operate-Transfer institutional model for the ticketing system had some
advantages and disadvantages. The system was eventually able to attract private
investment for the ticketing system equipment in a country where private investment was
difficult to secure due to political risk. This reduced the initial capital cost of the
TranMilenio BRT system. However, the ticketing system operator receives 10% of
TransMilenio’s total revenue, whereas their operating costs are probably much lower. As
such, it puts an unnecessary financial burden onto system operations. It would have been
cheaper if the ticketing system were simply purchased outright by TransMilenio.
Final Recommendations for TransJakarta, p. 45