May 2019 Is Informal Transit Land-Oriented? Investigating the Links Between Informal Transit and Land- Use Planning in Quito, Ecuador Working Paper WP19JG1

Full text

May 2019
The findings and conclusions of this Working Paper reflect the views of the author(s) and have not been
subject to a detailed review by the staff of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. Contact the Lincoln Institute
with questions or requests for permission to reprint this paper. help@lincolninst.edu
© 2019 Lincoln Institute of Land Policy
Is Informal Transit Land-Oriented? Investigating
the Links Between Informal Transit and Land-
Use Planning in Quito, Ecuador
Working Paper WP19JG1
Julie Gamble
Perry World House, University of Pennsylvania
Elisa Puga
Independent researcher

Abstract
Like many Latin American cities, Quito has undergone rapid urban transformation due to
transportation interventions aimed at improving equity and environmental outcomes. Yet,
informal transport continues to be a viable strategy for low-income residents living in peripheral
areas to move around, as cities are still built up through a relationship between informal and
formal systems. There is a long and rich tradition of Latin American peripheral urbanization
through unregulated or illegal processes tied to auto construction (Caldeira 2017). In this context,
this paper seeks to analyze the relationship between informal transit and land use in Quito,
Ecuador. It asks if informal transit is land-oriented. It seeks to discover how informal transit
route decisions are made, if land use regulations have any influence, what type of spatial patterns
arise, and the impacts on individuals. However, it is unclear how and where informal transit
operators place routes, which may or may not deviate from standard routes of formal
transportation services.
The analysis directly adds to transit-oriented research by uncovering the nature of the
relationship between land use regulation and informal transportation. We use a variety of
research methods: interviews, participant observation, sample survey, and GPS technology. The
initial findings demonstrate the importance of social networks in neighborhoods, and how
informal transportation routes provide connections between rural-urban, and urban-peri-urban
areas, that might be a continued and necessary option for cities. Informal transportation lines
operate in dense urban areas regulated by land use, as well as connecting modes for formal
transit that is integrated with the public transportation network. The high incidence of informal
transportation lines in the fastest growing areas of Quito seems to indicate where land markets
are burgeoning.
Keywords: informal transport, land uses, urban planning, transit planning

About the Authors
Julie Gamble is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perry World House
and a professor-researcher in the College of Social Sciences and Humanities at the Universidad
San Francisco de Quito, Ecuador. Her research focuses on the links between environment,
justice, and urban infrastructure. In August 2018, she joined the faculty as an assistant professor
in Urban Studies at Trinity College at Harford, CT.
Contact:
Perry World House
University of Pennsylvania
3803 Locust Walk
Philadelphia, PA 19104
jcgamble@gmail.com
Elisa Puga is a sociologist who holds a master’s degree in urban management and development
from Erasmus University, in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Her work as researcher has focused on
urban mobility and public spaces, with emphasis on social inclusion and citizenship, studying
transport and gender, inter-modality, urban cycling, and public space activation. Elisa has
professional experience in the public sector, nongovernmental organizations, and in teaching.
Contact:
Av. 10 de Agosto N3965 y Diguja
Quito-Ecuador, 170508
+593 995814072
elisapugac@gmail.com
Acknowledgements
We are thankful to Bernhard Snizek and Thomas Sick-Nielsen for the GIS spatial analysis as part
of the research team. In Quito, we are grateful for the on-the-ground support from students
Daniela Pabon and Maria Emilia Fierro. Our gratitude also goes directly to the companies who
participated in the study. We are appreciative of their time, collaboration and openness to share
their everyday challenges. Finally, we are incredibly thankful for the opportunity to conduct this
research with the generous support from the Lincoln Institute for Land Policy.

Table of Contents
Introduction ....................................................................................................................................1
a) From Latin American Transit Innovation to Land-Oriented Informal Transit .......................2
b) Context of Quito .....................................................................................................................6
Research Design: Mobility Studies, Informal Transit, and Socio-Technical
Experimentation ...........................................................................................................................11
Findings: Land-Oriented Informal Transport ..........................................................................16
a) Starting from the Neighborhood ...........................................................................................17
b) Traveling to and from the Neighborhood: In/visible Logics to Travel Prediction ...............20
c) Surveying Informal Transit Users ........................................................................................23
d) Locating Informal Routes .....................................................................................................26
Conclusions ...................................................................................................................................37
References .....................................................................................................................................40
Appendix .......................................................................................................................................46
a) Survey results .......................................................................................................................46
b) Survey Instrument ................................................................................................................50
c) Geoprocessing ......................................................................................................................53

Figures
Figure 1: Map of Bus Rapid Transit Lines in Quito .................................................................. 9
Figure 2: Main Destination Zones that Require Transfer by Means of Informal Transport .... 11
Figure 3: Screenshot of GPS Devices Operating Throughout Quito ....................................... 15
Figure 4: Map of the 43 Routes ............................................................................................... 18
Figure 5: Sample Trajectories of GPS Unit ............................................................................. 28
Figure 6: Informal Transit Line and Figure 7: Formal Transit Bus Services .......................... 29
Figure 8: Urban Land Incorporation Stages in Quito .............................................................. 30
Figure 9: Generalized Population of Quito (Housing Data from 2010) and Informal Transit 31
Figure 10: Informal Transit Lines and Areas That Experienced Rapid Growth ...................... 32
Figure 11: Proportion of Land Use Types Within 200 Meters of Informal Transit Line or Service
.................................................................................................................................................. 33
Figure 12: Map Protec Beaterio ............................................................................................... 34
Figure 13: Map Resid Urb 3 .................................................................................................... 34
Figure 14: Land Use Type Within 200 Meters from an Informal Line or a Formal Transit Stop
.................................................................................................................................................. 35
Figure 15: Recently Legalized Neighborhoods and Informal Transit Lines ........................... 36
Figure 16: Location of the Surveys Implemented.................................................................... 46
Figure 17: Gender and Age of the Survey’s Respondents ....................................................... 46
Figure 18: Main Destination to Travel for the Survey Respondents ....................................... 47
Figure 19: Travel Time According to the Survey Respondents .............................................. 47
Figure 20: Reasons for Using Informal Transport According to the Survey Respondents ..... 48
Figure 21: Safety Perception According to the Survey Respondents ...................................... 49
Tables
Table 1: Quito’s Population in Recent Census Years by Administrative Zones ....................... 7
Table 2: Sample Driving Record from GPS Device ................................................................ 27
Table 3: Transport Mode According the Travel Phase ............................................................ 48
Table 4: Geoprocessing ............................................................................................................ 53
Table 5: Quito 2017—Overview—Geodata and Methods ...................................................... 54
Table 6: Land Use Regulation Categories ............................................................................... 56
Table 7: Tabulations of Figures 12 and 13 .............................................................................. 57

1
Is Informal Transit Land-Oriented? Investigating the Links Between Informal Transit and
Land-Use Planning in Quito, Ecuador
Introduction
Like many Latin American cities, Quito has undergone rapid urban transformation due to
transportation interventions pursuing to improve equity and environmental outcomes. To achieve
such ends municipalities plan for transit-oriented development, which has been studied under the
rubric of housing provision and rail service (Chatman 2013), or bus-rapid transit and land-use
decisions (Rodriguez and Vergel 2013). Yet, informal transport continues to be a strategy for
low-income residents living in peripheral areas to move around as cities are still built up through
a relationship between informal and formal systems. There is a long and rich tradition of Latin
American peripheral urbanization through unregulated or illegal processes tied to auto-
construction (T. P. Caldeira 2017). Thus, areas outside of regulated and zoned urban land are
unregulated. These areas are better understood as “gray spaces” (Yiftachel 2009), where urban
informality becomes a mode of planning (Roy 2005). In this study, we do not treat informal
transport as a closed category that is opposite to the formal (McFarlane and Waibel 2016).
Rather, we analyze the multiple layers and logic of negotiated processes that shape the practices
of transit drivers.
In this context, this research seeks to investigate the relationship between informal transit and
land-use in Quito, Ecuador. It asks how informal transit is land-oriented. It seeks to discover how
decisions on informal transit routes are made, if land-use regulations have any influence, what
type of spatial patterns arise, and the impacts on individuals with different income levels. Transit
scholars argue how informal transit holds an important place for transportation in cities of
developing countries. It operates in the peripheries, which are usually unregulated. Informal
transit offers many benefits akin to formal public transportation and provides services at higher
frequencies at hours outside of operation of public transit. Informal transit usually covers areas
that lack formal bus services, and provides a flexible service adaptable to passenger needs,
connecting residents to public transport lines. It also might offer door-to-door attention or can
deviate from standard routes. Thus, this paper argues that informal transit operates in regulated
and unregulated areas of the city to capture the “holes” in the formal transportation service.
However, it is unclear how and where informal transit operators locate routes, which may or may
not deviate from standard routes of service provided by formal services.
This paper aims to directly add to transit-oriented research by uncovering the nature of the
relationship between land-use regulations and informal transit. It also proposes to examine the
qualitative characteristics and motivations of informal transit providers, starting from the social
networks in the neighborhoods they serve. These characteristics also demonstrate the importance
of social networks and neighborhood collective action. By employing a variety of research
methods that comprise qualitative and quantitative techniques, including interviews, participant
observation, survey, and GPS technology, this study aims to reveal the possibilities of informal
transit as a continued and viable option for cities. In this study, we define land-use regulation
through density restrictions, zoning, commercial, industrial and residential use—but, we will also

2
use other built environment indicators such formal transit infrastructure, and areas designated as
risky or unregulated to test other possible explanatory relationships with informal transit
corridors. This paper presents initial results that capture a slice of the informal transit network in
Quito. We analyze participant observation and semi-structured interviews to delineate the social
networks that underpin the organization of informal transit in Quito, showing how trust and
security are elements that are attributed to the areas of the city that it serves. Subsequently, we
report on the spatial patterns that have surfaced with informal transit operators and depict
findings on their relationship to urban land in Quito. The paper concludes by reporting on all
findings and offering public policy recommendations.
From Latin American Transit Innovation to Land-Oriented Informal Transit
Until recently, the idea of transit innovation in Latin American cities would have left almost any
urban resident in Quito speculating. In Latin America, urban planning practices have gone from
grandiose modernist experiments (Holston 1989, 41) to diverse-use large urban development
projects that emphasize ideas such as sustainability, resilience, and a world-class city (Zeiderman
2016). The attention to land use and transit-oriented development is historically known in Latin
America with the example of Curitiba’s BRT in the 1970s (Lindau, Hildago, and Facchini 2010).
Today, larger normative ideas of planning innovate diverse-use solutions for land, urban policies,
and infrastructure. Transit infrastructure innovations are studied, rationalized and analyzed with
their relationship to land uses and the greater urban context. However, little attention has been
placed on vital services that still move around a large number of urban residents in Latin
American cities. Regional superstar cities like Bogotá have focused on civic behavior and
sustainable transportation as a root to solving urban problems (Gilbert 2006). In Medellín,
known for its success with “social urbanism,” public and private institutions concentrated on a
combination of spectacular libraries, aerial cars, and museums as a way to regenerate and
connect marginalized areas socially and spatially with the rest of the city (Brand and Dávila
2011).
Some Latin American cities, like Medellín, have focused on diverse-use plans that are formed
around interventions in urban mobility. For example, a few Colombian cities have become
branded or fetishized for transportation successes like the cable car (Álvarez Rivadulla and
Bocarejo 2014). Moreover, the profusion of bicycle infrastructure networks has begun to connect
cities like Bogotá (R. Cervero, Sarmiento, Jacoby, Gomez, and Neiman 2009). Parallel to these
initiatives, in recent years, transit-oriented development has emerged as a key tool and dominant
planning idea to promote efficient land-use policy decisions. By coordinating transit and land-
use planning, scholars have indicated the positive benefits to the urban environment and the
developing world (R. B. Cervero 2013; R. Cervero and Landis 1995). The literature mainly
discusses how transportation infrastructure influences urban development patterns (Crane 2000).
Indeed, the links between these two dominant planning ideas, transit and land use, have resulted
in improved transit accessibility, and environmental and economic sustainability. However,
transit-oriented development has often resulted in dominant ideas like locating new housing
developments near rail stations (Chatman 2013), as seen in the case of Mexico City (Guerra
2014). In the Latin American context, the links between bus rapid transit and land use decisions
have recently come to the fore , despite its clear integration established in Curitiba (Lindau et al.

3
2010). BRT systems can stimulate land development (Rodriguez and Vergel 2013, 14) as in
Curitiba. Transit-supportive development based on TOD strategies can promote compact and
mixed land uses, as well as concentrate demand, “balance passenger flows, and create
opportunities for multimodal travel” (Rodriguez and Vergel 2013, 14). Therefore, given the
importance of land use planning along transportation corridors, it is necessary to understand how
urban development facilitates and enhances public transportation use.
Yet, amongst these innovations in transit across Latin American cities, informal transit services
still serve a vital role in moving people around. Informal transit services are questionably a good
response for cities, but are also a vital source to move people around in the absence of state
services (R. Cervero 2000). As a result, cities have tried to place formal regulations on informal
transport through policies that restrict registration and licensing (Golub, Balassiano, Araújo, and
Ferreira 2009; Mateo-Babiano 2016). Popularly, informal transit services like rickshaws in India
(McConville 2010; Sonuparlak 2012) or Matatu routes in Nairobi (Badger 2014) demonstrate,
spatially and culturally, the relevance of informal transport to an urban economy (Mateo-
Babiano 2016). Informal transit services take place in the informal economy, as an
entrepreneurial response to a lack of state capacity (Soto 2010). Or, as we argue, informal transit
is a collective social action of people to provide their services at the neighborhood level (Castells
1984). These kinds of actions highlight how informal transit represents a fundamental right to
move around a city (T. P. R. Caldeira 2012).
The field of transit studies has mainly captured the characteristics of the supply and demand of
the informal transit market. It is conceptualized as a mobility option for poor households, as a
source of employment, and a complementary service between formal transportation routes and
efficient low cost systems that can alter and respond to changes in market conditions swiftly (R.
Cervero 2000; R. Cervero and Golub 2007). Similarly, informal transit services operating in the
peripheries are usually unregulated and pursued by local authorities, but at the same time offer
many benefits that formal public transportation does not (R. Cervero and Golub 2007). They
usually cover areas lacking regular buses and give a flexible service adaptable to passenger
needs, perhaps offering door-to-door attention and can deviate from standard routes (Cervero and
Golub 2007, 446–447). In the case of Quito, and compared to other modes of transportation,
informal transit offers higher sense of passenger safety, operates in extended schedules, and is a
more comfortable riding experience since a seat is guaranteed.
The spontaneity and hybridity of these kind of services, pricing, and routes are still not fully
understood but are rather often described as unorganized. For instance, supply-side studies
classify the different kinds of informal transit vehicles like passenger vans, microbuses, station-
wagons, sedans, pick-up trucks and even 2–3 wheel motorized and non-motorized services
(Cervero 2000, 15–25). Further, vehicles are distinguished by the class of vehicle, passenger
load, fare, and route. Studies have also been conducted on the kinds of owners and operators of
informal transit services, showing that they tend to have lower socioeconomic standing and adapt
differently to ideas of climate change (Ames, Mateo-Babiano, and Susilo 2014). Vehicle owners
are often found to be operators and this kind of work is fulfilled by rural migrants to cities,
unemployed men, or men who work in low-paying formal sector jobs (Cervero 2000, 3).
Usually, they are residents of the neighborhoods they serve. Furthermore, passengers that take
informal transit services are linked to the informal economic sector or have a lower socio-

4
economic standing and go shorter distances for purposes such as shopping. Further analyses of
these characteristics of the supply and demand sides of informal transit markets are imperative to
get a working understanding of the service.
A central aspect to understanding informal transit services is that it operates as self-organized
initiatives. Informal transit services offer safety and privatized trips for people who wish to travel
inter-regionally or trans-nationally (Valenzuela Jr., Schweitzer, and Robles 2005). They are
linked to greater processes of urban informality as a dominant mode of city production (Roy
2005). For example, motorcycles or moto-taxis is one kind of informal transit, such as all other
modes, following the logic of informality and defining how the city functions. Studies of moto-
taxis elucidate the importance of the motorcycle industry as part of the socio-technical systems
of cities in South East Asia. In general, many studies highlight the vital role of the motorcycle,
labelling the motorized service as critical to solutions in South Asian and South East Asian cities
(Joewono and Kubota 2005), as well as in the Philippines (Guillen, Ishida, and Okamoto 2013).
Informal transit services have also been evaluated from the point of view of the cultural and
social specificity (Mateo-Babiano 2016) and efficiency for users (Gupta, Chen, Miller, and Surya
2010, 6–13). Often in Latin America, as seen in Brazil, there is a trend to regulate or eliminate
informal transit services due to a host of factors including: rising traffic congestion, chaotic
driving practices, increased public safety concerns, competition to formal operators, higher fares,
and negative environmental impact, among others. In this sector, the prevalence of older vehicles
and a myriad of other factors produce both air and noise pollution (Golub et al. 2009). As such,
capturing the basic characteristics of the informal transit market is essential for understanding its
operations (Kassa 2014).
Yet, the study of informal transit is still looked at as a way for urban residents to “problem-
solve” in the absence of public provision and quality. This sector is labelled as a chaotic, laissez
faire system that is unable to be organized (Cervero 2000, 7). While informal transit is viewed in
some studies as highly efficient and adaptable due to a lack of hard infrastructure (Cervero and
Golub 2007, 449), it is still poorly understood why specific routes go to certain places in the city,
and how the urban land context influences informal transit provision. Thus, while most studies
seek to characterize or place order on how transit services are provided, this study seeks to
understand how informal transit services operate within the logic of urban land regulation. How
do informal transit providers choose their routes? How do they produce urban space? How are
they sensitive to urban land use? How do they serve “illegal” settlements or “areas in need”?
In Latin America, informal transit is characterized as a symptom of economic crises that
influences new forms of employment in the informal sector and liberalizes the transportation
sector. Informal transit competes in major cities by offering more flexible services. Informal
transit grew quickly as public policies in favor of automobility increased across the region.
Transit scholar Oscar Figueroa has written comprehensibly about informal transit in the era of
globalization across the region (Figueroa 2005, 46–48). He suggests that informal transit should
be labeled neither legal or informal, but rather, as a sector that is based in vehicles that are not
designed or adopted for collective use. Smaller passenger vehicles such as vans, jeeps and
microbuses in this context can be adapted to special transit needs in cities such as La Paz, Lima,
Bogotá, Caracas, Mexico City, and Buenos Aires. In general, the increase in congestion is

5
correlated with the diminished quality of public transit in Latin American cities. Informal transit
and the continued deregulation of transportation in cities contributes to congestion. However,
Figueroa notes that while high-income sectors have higher purchasing power to buy and
maintain private vehicles, the demand for transportation from lower income groups continues to
grow. This disparity draws out socio-spatial segregation due to the splint of transportation
services—informal transit is correlated with social differentiation (Figueroa 2005, 46–48).
In this context, the field of transit studies continues to see informal transit as a system that
responds to travel-demand and can be sold to governments as a transit solution (Soto 1989). Yet,
as transit-oriented development (TOD) is a policy that has updated approaches to the field to deal
with contemporary situations and urban realities, transit scholar Peter Calthorpe reminds us that
“transit is more than a transportation system; it also comes with an intrinsic land use logic”
(2010, 86). Thus, we understand informal transit as a system that is a functional part of transit
systems in Latin American cities. In this age of sustainable urbanism, there is a need to test the
relationships between alternative modes of public transportation used by urban residents. This is
particularly salient, as TODs must expand their reach in a polycentric, networked city. Informal
systems have the potentialities to provide on-demand ride services that also feed passengers onto
traditional public transit systems (McLeod, Scheurer, and Curtis 2017, 229). Transit scholars
have argued that density impacts commuting trips. But this opens up the classical “chicken and
egg” relationship, questioning if density needs to precede investment in public transport or vice
versa (Falconer and Richardson 2010, 3). We suggest that informal transit systems depend on
dense environments. Understanding how informal transit systems are integrated with land use is
required to promote better social distribution and capture the potentialities of informal transit.
We aim to show that dense areas can be anchored by efficient informal transit services.
Land use regulation in the global south is an understudied field. In general, land use regulation
provides motivation to restricting possible externalities like urban informality in the “developing
world.” In literature, urban informality is treated and understood as people living in squatter
settlements that lack basic services due to rapid urbanization (Roy 2005). The pace of urban
growth precludes local governments to manage the process, either by limiting urban growth
and/or efficiently distributing public goods and services. Municipalities regulate land through
zoning, which controls a range of different uses such as commercial, industrial, and residential—
assigning specific functions to land. Land use regulates density, which makes it difficult to build
(Glaeser, Gyourko, and Saks 2005) or control the possibility for new constructions (Quigley and
Raphael 2005). Yet, in the context of the United States, it has also been proven that there is
higher concentration of poverty in urban areas due to better access to public transportation
(Kahn, Glaeser, and Rappaport 2008).
Still, little is known about the effects of land use regulation on households of different income
levels in Latin America (Goytia, de Mendoza, and Pasquini 2010). Land use regulation has
mainly been looked at as an explanatory variable for its effects on urban informality. However,
in this study, we apply the logic of urban informality as an emerging planning practice (Miraftab
2009; Roy 2005), opening up the possibility to better comprehend the relationship between self-
organized initiatives and dominant logics of planning urban land. For instance, in the case of
Mexico City, the link and role of land use regularization has been studied drawing attention to
how the state mediates land through informal and formal development processes (Connolly and

6
Wigle 2017). In other words, informality is defined often through the application of land use
regulations, determining what is informal and what is formal, reinforcing inequalities associated
with informality (Connolly and Wigle 2017). While these debates continue to focus on
informality and settlements, the multiple logics and systems of informality have not been
considered. Specifically, the inter-linked relationships between informal transit and land has not
been studied. We argue the importance of studying both the formal and the informal transit
systems in their relations with land-use. Moreover, informal transit needs to be studied to
determine whether it is only linked to informal settlements or irregular areas in urban centers.
Our research examines how modes of land use regulation (which we define through municipal
zoning laws) produce the unplannable, or exceptions to the rule. We do not wish to theorize
between terms such as “indigenous,” “informal,” “paratransit,” “third-world transport,”
“intermediate technologies,” or “low cost transport,” but to see how transit operates within and
transversally vis-à-vis the dominant logic of land use regulation (R. Cervero 2000). We
understand informal transit as illegal or illicit services that function outside of transit regulations
and have not been object of public concessions. A better understanding of informal transit lines
can suggest what future interventions are needed in the areas of public transit, and the
proliferation and consolidation of new land markets.
Context of Quito
Quito is Ecuador’s capital and is located at 2,800 meters above sea level. By 2015, the city had
an estimated population of 2,456,938 inhabitants and an annual growth rate of 1.7% (DMQ
2012b). The high demand of commuting is motivated by an elongated city form which sprawls to
the peripheries of the north and south, and at the east to the valleys (DMQ 2012b). This is further
intensified by a decline in population in the center of the city and population growth in the
valleys and the northern and southern extremities of the city (INEC 2010). The figure below
demonstrates the growth per administrative zone in Quito:

7
Table 1: Quito’s Population in Recent Census Years by Administrative Zones
Administrative
zones
2001 2011 Increase /
decrease 2001–
2011%
Population % Population %
CONSOLIDATED
CITY
1,099,482 49.1 1,040,423 56.5 -2,5
Eloy Alfaro 453,092 20.2 412,297 22.4 - 2.2
Eugenio Espejo 421,782 18.9 394,005 21.4 - 2.5
Manuela Sáenz 224,608 10.0 234,121 12.7 - 2.7
URBAN
PERIPHERY 652,624 29,2 471,702 25,6 + 1,8
La Delicia 364,104 16.3 274,368 14.9 + 1.4
Quitumbe 288,520 12.9 197,334 10.7 + 2.2
RURAL AREA 487,085 22 330,076 18 + 1,3
Los Chillos 166,812 7.4 116,946 6.3 + 1.1
Calderón 162,915 7.3 93,989 5.1 + 2.2
Tumbaco 157,358 7.0 119,141 6.5 + 0.5
Source: Municipio del Distrito Metropolitano de Quito 2012b.
Table 1 indicates that the largest growth rate occurred in Calderón and La Delicia in the extreme
north of the city, Quitumbe in the far south, and the valleys Tumbaco and Los Chillos. The
majority of illegal o irregular neighborhoods are in Quitumbe at the southwestern edge of the
city, and in Calderon, representing the north-east periphery. Usually, illegal neighborhoods are
considered as such when they are located at or close to ecological protection areas or risky zones,
which is why we will consider these areas as illegal in our spatial analysis. However, the
Municipality of Quito (DMQ) reported that informal neighborhoods only refer to those who have
requested legalization. In 2009, there was a total of 170 neighborhoods requesting legalization.
Subsequently, in response to this demand, in 2010 DMQ created the program “Regula tu barrio”
to study and facilitate the legalization process of illegal areas (DMQ 2012a, p. 67). In 2011 a
study by “Regula tu Barrio” revealed that 439 illegal neighborhoods required and requested legal
status. However, based on the interviews’ statements, regularization processes do not directly
considerate service provision (including transport) as a requirement for regularization. Instead,
they deliver property titles. This means residents are responsible for upgrading the neighborhood
by requesting what they need to the authority in charge.
As the city has doubled in population density in the last 30 years, the demand for cheap land and
informal occupation has also grown (DMQ 2012a, 57). This has resulted in a lack of control and
bureaucratization of procedures for legalization of land with the invention of the Regula tu
Barrio program. Since the 1970’s, Quito has faced informal urban land occupation issues,
particularly in the areas of Calderón, Quitumbe, and La Delicia. Consequences of such
unprecedented growth include both the lack of basic services and public transit infrastructure. In
contrast, amenities including basic services and public transit infrastructure are concentrated in
the north and central part of the city, more commonly referred to as hyper-center (DMQ 2012a,
32). Social services like education and health are in the central area of the city, far away from

8
dense residential zones. Although basic public schools are relatively well distributed in the city,
high school infrastructure is concentrated in the hyper-center, favoring the north. A similar
situation occurs with regard to public health; there are more gaps of health services in the south
compared to the north (DMQ 2012a, 23). In this context, the demand for social services also
contributes to longer commuting distances to the north. We sustain that this situation has
contributed to the growth of the informal transport sector in Quito.
Every day in Quito, 4,565,000 trips are made, of which 3,850,000 are motorized (DMQ 2014).
Although 73% of this commuting is carried out by public transportation, this share is decreasing
by 1.4% per year (DMQ 2013). Despite this negative growth, the system is saturated, obsolete,
and does not satisfy the commuting needs of the people (Vaca 2011). Citizens question the
system’s coverage, schedule, frequency, quality and safety (El Telegrafo 2016). With a growing
rate of vehicle ownership at 9.2% annually, an additional 50,000 vehicles are introduced in the
Metropolitan District per year (DMQ 2013). This increase in vehicles surpasses the population
growth rate by 4 times, demonstrating a pronounced shift from public to private transport.
Currently, bus rapid transit (mainly publicly operated) and private buses characterize Quito’s
transit system. The system is both institutionally and physically complex. The Trolebus is
Quito’s first BRT line and is supplemented by two other trunk-feeder systems, Ecovía and
MetrobusQ. The Trolebus was one of the first BRTs in Latin America, built in the 1990s to
satisfy the transportation needs of the expanding city. The Ecovía works with diesel fuel. It was
built between 1998 and 2000, and in 2016 was extended to the southern part of the city. The third
BRT line, the MetrobusQ, is privately operated by a concession agreement between the
municipality and a private transit company. Inaugurated in 2005, DMQ financed and installed
the physical infrastructure. The three BRT lines are parallel and longitudinally oriented, because
of the shape of the city. Now, nearly 20 years later, Quito’s BRT system moves 800,000 people a
day and has reached its operational capacity. In addition, the city has a system of feeder buses
that are supplementary to the BRT lines. Besides the Metropolitan Integrated Transport System
and conventional buses, Quito has bicycle infrastructure supported by a public system, the
BiciQuito, inaugurated in 2012. Finally, there is an underground metro rail that is planned to be
built and be integrated into the existing public transit framework. Figure 1 shows a map of
existing BRT lanes for reference:

9
Figure 1: Map of Bus Rapid Transit Lines in Quito
Source: Map, Shape files of formal transit lines, DMQ 2016. Map background, OpenStreet.org
The public transport system in Quito is supported through a complex governance system. But to
understand how it functions, it is necessary to consider national regulations. According to article
264 of the Ecuadorian Constitution (República del Ecuador 2008), municipalities have exclusive
planning and operating rights regarding transit, transport, and road safety, as part of the current
decentralization process. This means that each municipality has the task to plan, regulate, and
control transit and public transport within their urban territory, albeit under the oversight of the
Minister of Transport and Public Works. The Código Orgánico de Organización Territorial,
Autonomía y Descentralización (COOTAD), states that transportation planning must
complement development and territorial plans at the local level (Ministerio de Coordinación de
la Política y Gobiernos Autónomos Descentralizados 2012). In the case of Quito, the Empresa
Pública de Pasajeros de Quito (EMPTQ) operates the Trolebus and Ecovía, whereas the
MetrobusQ is currently run by a concessionary agreement between private bus companies. The
future Metrorail is being planned by the Empresa Pública Metropolitana de Metro de Quito
(EPMMDQ). The Empresa Pública Metropolitana de Movilidad y Obras Públicas (EPMMOP)
oversees construction of transit infrastructure. Bicycle planning occurs through Agencia
Metropolitana de Tránsito de Quito (AMT). AMT also controls traffic, conducts vehicle
registration and technical inspections, and manages traffic safety. This all comes together under
the Secretariat of Urban Mobility (SUM) at the municipal government level. Furthermore, the
Urban Mobility Secretariat is currently studying Quito’s taxis market to determine the supply of
taxi-rutas and shared informal taxis (Secretaría de Movilidad 2017).

10
Within this context, Quito has faced mobility challenges for many years and has not conducted
significant studies on informal transit since the 1980s (Vásconez, Etienne, and Figueroa 1985).
In general, informal transit services are provided under different conditions by either competing
or complementing conventional bus routes. Their schedules are usually longer and flexible, and
the transport units are not as crowded as buses. According to the city’s Transport Plan of 2002,
informal transport is a response to the deficiencies of the formal system, offering service to
popular neighborhoods or barrios marginales (DMQ 2002). In 2002, this service helped transfer
people from public transport to their peripheral residences at night. Figure 2 illustrates how
informal transit served the peripheries.
Since 2002, the informal transit sector has evolved, accounting for 2 percent (60,000) of the 73
percent of trips done by public transport (Empresa Pública Metro de Quito 2011). Illegal buses
and microbuses, shared taxis, furgonetas, or taxi-rutas service comprise the informal transit
sector in Quito and are not recognized as an option to public transport services according to the
national transit laws (República del Ecuador 2015). According to a 2011 mobility survey, of the
2 percent that use informal transit, 54 percent of these users ride informal transit every work day.
In the same report 22 percent reported occasionally riding informal transit and 15 percent of
users ride these services more than 5 days per week; 4.9 percent reported daily use and finally
3.6 percent of users reported ridership at least once a week (Empresa Pública Metro de Quito
2011).
Meanwhile, Quito’s Mobility Master Plan 2009–2025 states that there are fifty percent more
illegal taxis than authorized ones (8,766) circulating in the city (DMQ 2009, p. 23). In this study,
we look at illegal buses, taxi-rutas (private vehicles used for car-sharing) and furgonetas or
shared passenger vans, but not at all illegal taxis because these operations have a designated and
specific route. It is unclear if the municipality differentiates between shared taxis and illegal
private taxis that take passengers from door to door. Yet, the municipality plans to eliminate
most of illegal taxi services by 2017, guaranteeing that only 10 percent illegal taxis will remain
in circulation by then (DMQ 2009, 82). According to the Mobility Diagnosis of Quito (DMQ
2014), the increase in demand for commuting, coupled with deficient territorial coverage of a
deteriorating public system, have triggered the use of private vehicles and the growth of informal
transport. Commonly, users of informal services are people who live in the peripheries of the city
where public transport does not exist or is in limited provision (DMQ 2014, 12). In addition, the
growth of informal transport has been further encouraged by a complex regulatory framework
that limits the incorporation of new service providers that would complement the public system.
Finally, the municipality recognizes that its control over informal transit is unevenly applied and
tries not to affect the people who depend on the informal service. It recognizes that large public
transport deficiencies in the city peripheries, as to coverage, frequencies and schedules, has led
to a parallel informal system (DMQ 2014, 12).

11
Figure 2: Main Destination Zones that Require Transfer by Means of Informal Transport
Source: Figure redrawn by Julie Gamble from original map (DMQ 2002).
Research Design: Mobility Studies, Informal Transit, and Socio-Technical
Experimentation
The central research question of this investigation is: Is informal transit land-oriented? The main
hypothesis is that informal transit has surfaced in Quito due to peripheral urbanization and
currently serves urban areas regulated and unregulated by land use policy. We will draw on
multiple research strategies that include an analysis based on semi-structured interviews,
photography, documents review, sample survey, and GIS spatial analysis as we seek to
understand the multilayered perspective of service providers, users, and local authorities.
The field of informal transit research encompasses the social and economic world of urban
residents and their transit market. Academic inquiry has mainly relied on traditional methods of
transit planning such as survey data analysis (Bonnel 2009), case studies (Cervero 2000),
statistical analysis of policy effects (Golub et al. 2009), and visual methods (Rose 2007) to better
understand the context of “indigenous transport” (Mateo-Bibliano 2015). We apply a variety of
techniques to capture the world of informal transit. As noted above, the field still employs
methods that lead to descriptive analyses of informal transit as a key contributor to urban
economies. Indeed, the field of informal transit remains an understudied phenomenon.

12
Geographers Sengers and Raven (Sengers and Raven 2014) recently experimented with
transition studies which draw from a diverse set of disciplines such as science and technology
studies (STS), evolutionary economics, innovation systems and the history of technology
(Sengers and Raven 2014, 454). Transition studies have looked at how multilevel perspectives
encompass a variety of interactions that occur between knowledge, rules, landscape, and
alternative spaces or “niche” spaces for the study of socio-technical systems (Rip and Kemp
1998; Geels 2002, cited in Sengers and Raven 2014, 454). These authors experimented with
mobility as the object at the center of inquiry to comprehend the importance of informal transit in
the future cityscapes of Asian cities. They employed qualitative and explanatory narrative style
approaches to engage in a multilevel analysis of motor bikes combining a range of disciplines,
including geography, sociology, and transition studies (Sengers and Raven 2014, 457).
While Sengers and Raven modelled their work to grasp the complexities of informal transit,
technology use, and the urban context, their work still relies on the mobility object at its center of
inquiry. Their work is part of a larger ethnographic project focused on reporting on particular
phenomena such as actors (Latour 1987), policies (McCann and Ward 2012), or things
(Appadurai 1988). Informal transit studies following migrants in and out of southern California
is one example of actor-focused studies (Valenzuela Jr. et al. 2005). Ethnography lends itself
useful to study mobile objects due to the very fact that ethnographic methods begin in motion
and, thus, inherently questions what a mobile ethnography is (Lugo 2013, 203). This field is
known as mobility studies and employs disciplines such as geography, sociology and
anthropology to understand objects in motion (Büscher, Urry, and Witchger 2010). Starting from
a multi-sited ethnography (Marcus 1995) to study informal transit is important because it
involves studying infrastructures defined as socio-technical systems (Star 1999) that are
dispersed throughout the city. It is experimental because it aims at producing scientific
knowledge through empirical data on urban environment which translates results back into the
field (Latour and Woolgar 1979).
Because these illicit, flexible and organized informal transit systems do not have a permanent
physical infrastructure, the ways to gather data must necessarily be multi-sited and creative. In
our research, we start from an ethnographic perspective, where the researchers are at the center
of crafting social relationships in order to study informal transit in Quito (Fortun 2012). We
consider the cityscape an urban laboratory full of possibilities to study and distill information of
socio-technical phenomena (Coutard and Guy 2007, 3–4). Yet, we must carefully pull together
vulnerable subjects and objects as an ensemble (or assemblage) to study outcomes (Gamble
2017; McFarlane 2011).
In this study, we draw from feminist science and technology studies (STS) to understand both the
subjects and objects of interest that constitute the ensemble. Subjects and objects of interest draw
attention to how and who we do research for (de la Bellacasa 2011). Therefore, we are interested
in carefully identifying research relationships to account for neglected subjects and objects of
research. The distinction between subjects and objects is necessary to produce the dualities of
knowledge that pertain to informal transit. For example, the route or the ways in which informal
transit routes are laid out is linked to an organized logic that is predetermined by either a group
of individuals or a leader. Yet, these understandings change due to consumer demand and the
urban built environment. Therefore, how these socio-technical factors are pulled together for

13
analysis must be considered carefully. We used “agential cuts” (Barad 2003, 815) to assemble
people (subjects such as leaders and associates) and things (objects such as GPS devices, sedans,
small passenger vans in motion, or bus stops) to be investigated together. An assemblage pulls
together heterogeneous phenomena to ascertain how they interact in order to produce new
knowledge (Gamble 2017, 5).
Our research was collaborative from its premise. In contrast to case study approaches to informal
transit, we ask what experimental ethnography can look like and what it can accomplish. We
view this project as double folded: from its initial stages the work has been horizontal and
collective, carefully crafted from the positionality of feminist activist and urbanists, and also
having political intent (Collins, Jensen, and Auyero 2017). It began this way because it was
necessary to establish careful research relationships between the researchers and the subjects and
objects of research. As such, the research team consists of both an American and Ecuadorean
participants. The dual nationality of the team was instrumental to develop initial contact and trust
with informal transport companies. As these companies recognize their illicit activity, they are
weary to trust or work in collaboration with any researcher. Therefore, to gain trust, we had to go
in as a team to observe and make initial contact with all the companies we worked with. Riding
their buses and sitting in their sedans was a way to build trust.
The legitimacy of the project fell between having local and international contacts and
maintaining social relationships with the individuals that work in the informal transit companies.
Ethnographic data such as semi-structured interviews, participant observation and photographs
were a necessary step to gather geographic data from mobile devices (discussed below).
However, this kind of data collection was only possible through the dual nationality team. Trust
was at times offered more easily with the presence of an American, and at other times, trust and
cooperation relied on having local Ecuadorean support. The field team comprised an American
PhD in urban planning and an Ecuadorean urban sociologist trained in the Netherlands. Because
we were interviewing and talking to informal transport companies, our commitment had to go
beyond collecting data.
We conducted preliminary visits between August 2016 and February 2017 to locate and build
relationships with informal transit companies. The first step was to walk the city to identify the
location of the informal transport stops. We based this step on previous personal observations, as
well as information provided by others. Informal transit services in Quito usually make
connections from public transport stops to peripheral areas of the city. Thus, we selected some
areas in the north, south, west, east, and the valleys, to walk by. Once the stops were identified,
we requested the contact number and name of the leader of the company. We then contacted
them to schedule a meeting. It is important to mention that some of the companies did not agree
to the interview. We initiated contact by presenting the research team and engaged in informal
discussions about how company leaders perceived their work. It was a challenge to gain trust
since interviewees believed we were part of the municipality and therefore some kind of negative
consequence might result from collaborating with us.
The initial interactions focused on explaining the academic character of the research, and the
importance of their work in the context of Quito’s mobility challenges. This meant that we had to
highlight the way in which our research could be mutually beneficial with their participation. For

14
instance, many of these companies work under precarious conditions and do not have the
technology to geocode their routes. To gain trust during one interview, a company would only
accept GPS devices after we attended a company-wide assembly meeting. In this meeting, they
requested human resources and conflict-resolution assistance that we had to provide. That meant
us going to their offices outside of the Metropolitan district, bringing an HR expert and
subsequently talking to the members of the company. Only after that, they accepted to work with
us and use the GPS devices in their vehicles. Establishing trust was hard work. The ethnographic
data collection was necessary to build trust and to further activate our political commitment to
return this knowledge back to them. We took photos during difficult moments at different sites to
visually represent the kinds of working decisions and organization that companies use. Once our
research was complete, we would be able to give them back “technical knowledge” that may
help their cases of legalization or support political arguments in favor of their work.
The subsequent phase of the research was to test patterns of differences in informal transit. We
gave GPS devices to informal transportation drivers and the data generated in this way enabled
us to capture, track, and simulate moving systems. Recently, the subject of using mobile methods
in transit studies has gained attention (Merriman 2014) because it uncovers geographies and
movements that cannot be gathered by large-scale surveys of travel behavior or travel demand
usually employed in transit studies. Mobile methods engage with “a range of performative,
participative, and ethnographic techniques that enable researchers to more effectively ‘move,’
‘be’ or ‘see’ with their research subjects and objects” (Merriman 2014, 168). Thus, GPS
technology was part of our methodological approach to the study of informal transit
(Christensen, Mikkelsen, Nielsen, and Harder 2011; Gamble, Snizek, and Nielsen 2017).
Two GPS devices were distributed to 25 informal transit companies (although we interviewed 30
companies, 5 did not accept the devices) between February and May 2017. We staggered
interviews and device dissemination because we worked with 20 GPS units and gave companies
the devices over a period of 3 weeks. Participants were given a sheet with specific instructions
on how to use the device and at what hours to operate it. Drivers were instructed to turn on
devices at the beginning of their work day and turned them off after work hours. During these
months, we were able to see where the drivers and their vehicles were going from the website of
the company that we use for tracking (Optimus Tracker).i The routes and information that we
were able to identify during the data collection process were live. Figure 3 shows some of the
devices we could see from the website to determine where vehicles were going and where they
were at, based on their device number.
Each GPS device tracked several trajectories over the course of three weeks. For each data point,
one GPS tract was created. We were able to see what data points agglomerated and if drivers
were using the devices correctly, in live time, during the experiment. Therefore, when devices
were not working, or individuals were not using them properly, we were able to decipher which
information did not pertain to established routes.

15
Figure 3: Screenshot of GPS Devices Operating Throughout Quito
Source: Image taken by Julie Gamble from Optimus Tracker site under the group’s research account.
When we picked up the GPS devices, as we are committed to transparency, we gave the raw data
that the devices produced to the companies.
In the GPS analysis phase of the study, we define land use regulation through density
restrictions, zoning, commercial, industrial and residential use following the research approach
from Goytia and Pasquini in their case study on Buenos Aires (Goytia and Pasquini 2012). For
this, we relied specifically on Quito’s urban land use ordinance 127, that characterizes all land
use categories (DMQ 2016b) in the city. Furthermore, land titles in Quito are the way the
municipality has slowly incorporated unregulated land in the peripheries to the official city
(Mena Segura 2010). The municipality of Quito currently has areas that are defined as regulated
(according to zoning, density rules, etc.), and unregulated, which are associated with greater risks
from natural disasters, as well as a lack of land title. Unregulated land generates externalities that
are not absorbed or considered in how transportation services are provided at the local level. This
will help us reveal if informal transit corridors are sensitive to land use regulation. We are also
be open to use other built environment indicators such as road network, transit infrastructure,
open spaces and possible urban design features to test other possible explanatory relationships
with informal transit corridors. Next, we use data results to discuss how we analyzed interviews
and GPS routes to determine their relationship to urban land use, which is situated in a socio-
cultural context.

16
Findings: Land-Oriented Informal Transport
Transit studies have become engaged with ideas such as transit villages or dense neighborhoods
and neighborhood-scale improvements that focus on design and urban form. The field has drawn
attention to transit-oriented development, arguing for the link between transit and land use
planning in order to improve how people move around (R. Cervero and Landis 1995). In this
regard, the field of transit studies is concerned with advancing how cities can plan dense
neighborhoods around transit to discourage automobile use and ownership (Chatman 2013). Yet,
what happens to transit-oriented development in cities that still rely heavily on informal transit?
The solution as discussed above has been to turn to “paratransit” or “indigenous transport” but
has not considered how these routes are planned and what kinds of organized logics they operate
with. In this section we argue that low income areas in cities in the global south, like Quito, have
turned to informal transit starting at the neighborhood scale to provide accessibility and more
transportation options.
When considering transit-oriented development, precise definitions of the neighborhood unit or
the built environment are difficult to determine for cities like Quito, where informal transit
services link urban/rural land and regulated/unregulated areas. In this section we will discuss
how informal transit companies maneuver and make route decisions based on interactions among
the built environment and informal transactions before revealing its relationship to land use
regulation. We aim to discuss the concept of the neighborhood as a socially-defined historic unit
where collective action takes place to compensate for the lack of collective public services
(Castells 1984). We begin from the perspective of the neighborhood not as a spatial unit to
conduct travel demand analyses (Ewing and Cervero 2010) but as a sociocultural phenomenon
that changes over time with urban form. We then apply GPS trajectories to the urban
administrative layout of Quito, demarcating where the informal routes go and comparing them to
population densities citywide.
In the field of transit studies, it is well established that the built environment and the
socioeconomic status of users are the main influences on travel behavior (R. Cervero 2002;
Ewing and Cervero 2010). In general, there is concern for reducing vehicle miles traveled in
cities across the world, as cities are expanding, and metropolitan governments are confronting
ways to solve more complex mobility patterns. Transit studies address economic and behavioral
explanations to understand how the built environment influences travel choices (Ewing and
Cervero 2001; 2010). In this literature, some measures of built environment are density,
diversity, design, destination, accessibility, and distance to transit (Ewing and Cervero 2010,
267). But, since informal transit is characterized as highly flexible and chaotic, going to city
areas located between urban/rural and regulated/un-regulated, it becomes difficult to imagine the
usefulness of this conventional research approach.
Instead, we argue that one needs to use a variety of research methods to study informal transit.
Ethnographic, qualitative and quantitative methods lend themselves to the study of informal
transit. We argue in favor of alternative logics that are transversal or run alongside prediction
models. We sustain that such methodology reveals the kinds of behaviors of those who take
informal transport and why; as well as how informal transport companies plan services and
attract passengers.

17
We identified 43 routes (Figure 4) and applied semi-structured interviews to operators of 27
routes. We interviewed mainly male informal transportation company leaders and presidents in
January–May 2017 and carried out participant observation since August 2016. In addition, we
interviewed 4 representatives of the municipality to explore public policies regarding informal
transport and its links to land uses. The interviews were mostly with men because our survey
results indicate that the sector mainly employs and is operated by men. Overall, we aim to offer
insights into the logic by which informal transit companies choose their routes in Quito.
a) Starting from the Neighborhood
In a city where supposedly only 2% of daily trips are made on informal transit, one would expect
that informal transit providers can identify the reasons why they choose their routes and have
clear estimates of how many people use their routes. But, many interviewees could not say why
they chose their routes without telling historic narratives behind the company and then the route.
Informal transit providers are usually residents of the parish of Calderón. This service opened
the doors to many people who were unemployed and has generated a lot of jobs. Due to the
increase of people in the parish, which was originally a marginal area sparsely populated,
everything began to flourish both with commercial and housing investment. But public urban
service did not adequately supply the demand that existed in the area. Then, a group of seven
people who were then unemployed got together and started to use their small pickups and old
cars as a working tool. Initially the service run from Carapungo to the stop of the trolley down
avenue August 10 (at that time Simon Bolivar Avenue didn’t exist). The population began to
accept the service.

18
Figure 4: Map of the 43 Routes
Source: Elisa Puga
The male providers discuss their needs to work and their illegal status prior to considering any
logic they apply to how they organize their routes. They first identify that their work is illegal,
but a fundamental component to the neighborhoods they serve. These characteristics make up a
neighborhood unit as theorized by urban sociologist Manuel Castells, who studied the rise of
urban social movements from the neighborhood scale (Castells 1984). Castells suggests that the
neighborhood unit is fundamentally an independent urban compound comprising processes of
production, of consumption, and of exchange, all of which are socio-spatial processes (Arnaud et
al.,2012, cited by Castells and Grilló 2006, 57). In our case, the neighborhood is important as
producer and consumer of informal transit, enabling the service to exist. The neighborhood unit
thus cannot be only understood as a structure that is based on urban facilities or agglomeration as
studied under the rubric of transit demand; it is also a socio-spatial unit that allows for multiple
processes and practices of informality to coincide.

19
The links between urban land and informal transport are clearly apparent between areas with a
high level of population growth and trip transfers to the consolidated city. The results show that
the informal transport routes reach central areas of the city, as well as provide services between
urban, rural and semi-peripheral parishes. The informal transport routes serve as intermodal
connections for the Integrated Public Transportation System of Quito.
In fact, many companies emerged at the same time or a little after the creation of the
neighborhoods to respond to commuting demands. Others have been created in the last years
because of the fast population growth in peripheral areas and the concomitant deficiencies of the
public transport system. According to the informal transit companies’ interviews, 26% of them
have emerged in the last five years, and 30% between the last 6 to 10 years. While 22% of the
companies operate over more than 20 years, their creation coincides with the formation of some
of the neighborhoods. A similar percentage is found for the routes that operate between 11 and
15 years and have become part of the neighborhood life.
The importance of the neighborhood was not just a matter of resolving employment needs, it was
about how the self-organizing logic was a component tied to where individuals live. While
certain areas of the urban built environment exhibit specific characteristics of land use such as
residential, regulated or unregulated, the residents who are also informal transit operators assert
their logic of route choice based on their social networks, sense of trust, and cultural identity. In
other words, how informal transit companies choose their routes based on neighborhood needs
organized around their relationship to urban land precedes their perspective on travel demand.
Placing the logic of production and consumption of informal transit necessarily comes from
socio-spatial interactions. This is further evident when discussing specific informal transit routes:
[We started] precisely because of the transportation deficit that existed at that
time, and because transport was not as citizens deserve […] and need. And
despite there is a company that in quotation marks was legal but right now is
illegal, because they do not have the documents updated.
Travel demand forecasting is meant to estimate or guide regional highway and transit investment
projects, some of which do not lead to sustainable or smart growth. However, since informal
services define route choice by starting from a lack of services in the neighborhood, we argue
that it inherently becomes an urban land question (Robinson and Roy 2016) where informal and
self-organizing logic for collective action creates the framework for route choice. For example,
the first quote above mentions Calderón, which is a rural parish and runs directly to urban
parishes. The self-organizing logic of the informal transit providers selects routes and the ways
in which the choice is made is determined by the built environment (Crane 2000). The route is a
line chosen in-between the rural-urban connection or peri-urban connections and could, thus, be
considered informal transit connection. Therefore, we sustain that land use, or where urban
functions are located, is fundamentally a characteristic to how informal transit service provision
is decided. Informal transit from here on, we will refer to as informal transport because of its tie
to urbanization as a process continually done by citizens (T. P. Caldeira 2017). Next, we
consider the concept of how “people’s needs” characterize the routes chosen and how this is also
ultimately tied to urban land functions.

20
b) Traveling to and from the Neighborhood: In/visible Logics to Travel Prediction
As many scholars have cited land use patterns affect travel behavior, we argue that this then
impacts how informal transit is planned, self-regulated, and something that should be considered
when determining the relationship between urban land and informal transport. So, in this section
we rely on interviews to understand the areas that informal transit providers serve, how they are
organized, and what they do to meet travel demands. We do this to apprehend the in/visible
dynamics that individuals consider as reasons to take informal transit. In Section C, we discuss
results of the intercept survey we conducted because during interviews it became clear that there
were several competing logics that needed to be understood. There is a constellation of
determinants that factor into why providers chose specific routes.
The built environment and socio-economic status are two factors that influence travel. Thus, it is
important to comprehend the relationship between informal transit services and the clientele
targeted by the companies. Typically, interviewees of informal transit companies referred to their
clientele as:
[We work for] all kind of people. They leave their jobs, they come to the bridge of
Guajalo and because they know that we provide the service; even the transit
agents make use of it. And to earn their will, if they listen to what you are
recording: We do not charge them a ticket ... [We serve] children, women, seniors
(...) who are from this sector.
To understand the critical way in which these companies view their users, we had to examine the
overall perspective of informal transit providers. Listening to the profiles of their users was
critical for thinking about how and why their services continue. It was also insightful for
understanding how companies predict travel behavior. We knew that the dominant mode of
prediction was self-organized logic and had to be further understood, starting from the drivers
themselves.
In interviews, the ways in which people became associated, or became drivers, depended on the
socio-cultural relationships within the neighborhood served by the company. Interviews
illustrated that workers started working with company often by living in the neighborhood it
serves. A morador (resident) would inherit the rights of the previous driver vis-à-vis family or
trusted friends. Companies usually do not charge the driver a fee for being part of the company,
as the formal taxi service does. Instead, informal taxi drivers, or associates, usually request help
to pay fines the other partners have paid (ponerse al día en las cuotas) or commit themselves to
pay a monthly fee to cover administration costs.
Through interviews we documented that informal transport does not mean it lacks order or
structure. Internally, companies organize themselves and might have hierarchies and democratic
elections. Also, they have monthly fees to cover administration costs, accounting procedures,
formal and standardized processes for accepting partners, and infrastructure such as offices and
parking lots or stops. However, not all the companies have the same degree of organization. That
varies according to the number of years they are operating, the size of the fleet, the length of the
routes, and the kind of leadership. The routes with higher levels of organization, even have

21
frequency control tables, penalties in case of absence or when schedules are not respected, and
economic support when cars are arrested. These factors contributed to keeping up with customer
demands as well as providing a consistent and reliable service.
Companies do not rely on sophisticated predictions but have alternative strategies for
deciphering and interpreting the preferences of their users. We overwhelmingly found that
informal transit operators care about the opinion of clients as their service is sensitive to users’
satisfaction. Users, when having the option (meaning access to public transport), can choose not
to use their service. Therefore, operators are attentive to overall service quality including fares,
waiting time, conditions of the cars, or safety, among others.
In general, informal transit companies are less interested in the socio-economic profile of the
user as they have little information on this. But, interviewees described that their services
increased as the neighborhood or people that lived in the area discovered their mode of transport.
Two dominant and in/visible logics surfaced from the interviews regarding route choice. On the
one hand, (1) companies could determine that they were key interlocutors in the transit landscape
of Quito based on a dignified, intermodal, comfortable, and frequent service for citizens at
market competitive prices to strategic areas of the city. On the other hand, (2) the idea of
confianza, or trust, was central to why they believed users preferred their informal services:
(1) ... to give them the service they deserve and to guarantee citizens are well-
treated in the 8 northeastern parishes. (…) They have a shared taxi with
minimum costs, so they no longer pay much as they used to 8–9 years ago,
when going to Cumbayá from La Floresta taxis cost between 12 to 15 dollars,
to bring them here to the capital of Quito or vice versa (to go down to
Cumbayá.) Then we were born as taxiruta, so all the 8 northeastern parishes
have a shared taxi service for a minimum fare of one dollar per person, which
means the driver would earn for the trip 4 dollars, something that here in
Pichincha is the most economic for taxi service, and for citizens and the
society.
(2) Three years ago, we implemented [a life insurance service] because, since
Simón Bolívar Avenue was created 5 years ago, there were too many traffic
accidents due to high speed on the road. Before in the sector there was no such
high traffic and high speeds. So, we hired an insurance service company
which assured us, the vehicle, and third parties. And then we started to
advertise [this benefit] to the whole parish indicating that now they can travel
safely, that now in case of accident there is protection for the vehicle, the
driver and the passengers.
This shows that networks based on ideas of confianza (trust) attract users who desire to arrive at
specific areas of the city to use informal transit. Concepts like confianza are critical components
to sociocultural relationships upon which these services are based, incentivizing users to connect
to their neighborhood providers and to prefer their services.

22
While case studies of informal transit discuss what the characteristics of operation are, they do
not discuss the organized self-managed logic that regulates the provision of their collective
services. Here, the idea of confianza surfaces again because individuals could travel to their
destinations in a comfortable way for an equivalent or competitive price. For instance, in many
neighborhoods, small 4-cab sedans called taxi-rutas ran the same route as buses that serve
peripheral neighborhoods. These informal services usually charge 25 cents per seat (depending
on the route, the price might vary between 20 cents to 1 dollar) and only travel the same route as
the bus that accesses the same neighborhood:
[This happens] most of all because the transport service provided by the
municipality is very inefficient. Why is it inefficient? Because the bus comes
every half hour, and people are in a hurry and they stand with the risk of being
robbed. We try as they say, we collaborate with them because all the people live
in a fast-paced world, and they cannot be there waiting half an hour for the bus. In
other words, we provide the service faster, we arrive every 5 minutes.
Passengers opt for this service because it gets them to their destinations more comfortably,
safely, and quickly, and can serve to connect people to the public service as a form of inter-
modality. The logic of the informal line is to provide a trusted service based on social
relationships that at many times runs parallel and uses the same existing public bus stops and
route that was determined based on modern prediction models.
Confianza is a dual logic that works to get and obtain clients but is also a way for informal transit
to compete with the formal public system. For instance, women in Quito who ride public buses
have a heightened level of feeling being stared down and report being touched inappropriately,
etc. In a report on violence and insecurity on public transport in Quito, the municipal
administration found that within its integrated Trolebus system, 38 percent of women felt most
insecure while entering the bus (Observatorio Metropolitano de Seguridad 2014). Informal
transport vehicles work according to socio-cultural or in/visible logics that quite often influence
the way their routes are set and why people take and prefer them. Furthermore, comprehending
these logics is important because it can be understood as a motivating factor for travel demand in
“indigenous” or “informal” transit services. In Quito, ideas of violence and insecurity influence
people’s travel behavior. We suggest this is one compelling factor for people who have pre-
established networks of trust to prefer or choose informal transport.
Moreover, most informal operators work outside of operating hours of public transit. This is a
motivating factor for individuals to use their services. Informal transit operators complement
buses during peak hours. For example, peak hours in neighborhoods that provide informal
services also take children to areas that are between schools and bus routes. Safety and trust are
evident, as parents send their children in taxi-rutas in between the public bus stop and the school.
Lines run alongside and fill existing holes between the service of public transit lines and are a
critical component to collective organization and confianza in the neighborhood. Therefore, in
Quito it is seen that informal transit companies either earned the route over struggles with other
companies over time, continue to compete with other companies, or work parallel to established
public transit routes. There is a common understanding or agreement between informal transit
companies that can be considered the alliances that hold them together (R. Cervero 2000), but we

23
suggest that this demonstrates the multiple logics at work that determine their routes. Thus, it is
both the idea of the security that the service offers, coupled with traveling the route that fills gaps
of service which is predicted by the built environment.
In interviews, it was also difficult for informal transit providers to make distinctions between
their users and their socio-economic status. As such, we draw attention to people who are outside
of planning processes that depend on social networks of confianza and use informal transport:
We transport all kinds of people who have different activities, most of them to
their jobs, offices and/or place of study. But, as you will see, we are near a huge
sports park, there are many people who come in the early morning to jog in La
Carolina. They come in pantalonetita (shorts), before they get to their jobs. We
mobilize the entire sector across all areas and activities they do.
Companies see that they transport people, not necessarily socio-economic status categories,
when asked specifically about their clientele. They can discuss the neighborhoods they serve, but
do not necessarily directly address the influence of socio-economic factors on travel. These kinds
of travel behaviors are incompatible to the ways in which modern transport or travel predictions
are conceived.
The idea of confianza is a mutual logic that works for informal transport routes—trajectories that
go in-between different land uses, such as residential/commercial or urban/rural. Logics of trust,
dignity, and urban land are interwoven and coexist, and are not easily untangled. Informal transit
drivers comprehend these in/visible links and adjust their services to meet the client’s
preferences. This can be interpreted as the free-market transport choice because providers have
the ability to adjust their services according to market competition and self-regulate (R. Cervero
2000).
These in/visible logics are inherently attached and connected to urban land designation. We aim
to show this spatially in the next section. We understand that the companies that we interviewed
may have not surveyed their users to find out data on socio-economic background or other
characteristics (such as residential choice,) but we argue—and are uncovering how—in fact, the
informal logic works parallel to efficient and modern ways of understanding travel management.
These informal transit companies have a logic centered on the client which we must further
decode.
c) Surveying Informal Transit Users
The previous section relied on ethnographic research conducted throughout 2016 and 2017. We
analyzed interviews and field notes to ascertain the socio-cultural processes that influence travel
from the perspective of the informal transit companies. In this section, we draw on a survey of
transit user perceptions. Survey responses complement the ethnographic insights to the logics
behind how informalities work within the spaces between land and transit. It is important to
understand the rationalities behind why urban dwellers use collective transport services that are
not provided by the city. Urban residents recognize the services they use that are unregulated and
are influenced by the multiple processes of informality that link land use and transit in Quito.

24
Understanding informal transport also implies explaining the perspectives of the different actors
involved, including authorities and control organisms, service providers and users. While there is
an evident and permanent tension between authorities and operators regarding the legality of the
service, the users remain in the background and its habits and reasons for using this mode of
transport are not fully understood. As part our methodology, a user-oriented survey was
implemented at some informal transport stops, with the support of the companies.ii In total 403
survey interviews were made, mainly in peak hours using a non-probabilistic sample. The
criteria for selecting the informants was to choose people waiting in the line for the cars to leave
and their voluntary cooperation. The survey was done in seven informal transport stops (See
figure 15, appendix), where 10 companies provided the service. There was one stop located in
the valley, where three informal operators work. Most of the companies cover routes which also
have public transport, although it is not always direct. Four of the routes offer long-distance trips
(more than 10 km). The type of vehicles that provide informal service were buses, mini buses,
vans, private cars and some illegal and legal taxisiii.
The results of the survey reveal the demographic profile of users, their commuting habits, and
reasons and opinions of the informal transit service (see figure 16, appendix). Among the survey
respondents, 54% were women and 46% men. Most were aged 21–30 (33.4%) and 22.3% were
in the age group of 31–40. Next, 18.2% of the users are people from 15 to20 years; 15.7% were
41–50 years, and only 2% of people were older than 61 years.
The results of the survey were also used to understand the main trip destination. Figure 17 (see
appendix) indicates that 73% of survey respondents use informal transport to go to or from work,
which is coherent with data on the age of the users, since most belong to the economically active
population. There was no significant difference between men and women in the responses.
Further, 16.4% of users affirmed using informal transit to go to and from school (3% more
women than men chose this option). Other reasons for travel were of little significance.
However, we suggest that more women reported using informal transit because women take kids
to and from school.
As we will show in the next section, the use of informal transport to reach formal bus lines or
other modes of formal transportation is common. Survey results reveal how informal transit
works as a component of the intermodal system or as a link to the formal system. We wanted to
understand their travel chain to test this hypothesis. For example, table 3 (see appendix) indicates
that in a one-way route 52% of respondents use informal transport (taxi-rutas, vans or illegal or
school buses) as their first travel mode usually when leaving the house for work or school to
reach the stops of formal buses. This also means that, when returning, informal transport is the
last travel mode they use. In the first phase of travel, 43% of the people use formal transport. But
in the second phase of the trip, 32% use informal modes (compared to 41% who use public
transport, and 23% who walk). In the third phase of their trip, people mainly walk (59% of the
respondents), 19% use informal transport, and 17% take regular bus lines.
Living at the margins of the city might be cheaper in terms of land price and rent. However
informality is expensive (Smolka 2003). This means that accessing certain services that are not
provided in irregular areas might be higher in cost than in the regular ones. Similarly, when
commuting, people need to combine informal transport with regular buses because of distance

25
and availability. As a result, people pay two or more fares to reach their destination, or pay a
higher informal transit fare because sometimes it might be faster and more comfortable than
regular buses.
Travel time was also a motivating factor that seemed to influence users. For instance, figure 18
(see appendix) draws attention to one-way travel time in a motivation to use an informal vehicle:
25% of users declare travel takes 16 to 30 minutes, while 22% state it lasts 45 to 60 minutes, and
21% state it is more than 60 minutes. Moreover, 14% of respondents declare the journey lasts 5
to 15 minutes and 18% 31 to 45 minutes. These trip times were supplemented with repeated
observations and interviews that we witnessed during our fieldwork. Informal transport helps to
reduce the duration of the trips, since we found that people usually do not have to wait for long
periods for the vehicles to arrive. Also, the frequency of trips is higher since the vehicles get full
rapidly due to its lower capacity. However, waiting times might increase in peak hours due to
higher demand, as well as in earlier or later hours when there are less informal vehicles
circulating. While some informal companies have permanent routes and stops, others might
adapt their services to their clients’ needs, which is indicative of a more flexible route. But,
informal vehicles do not stop as often as public transport, and the routes are shorter, making the
trip more efficient.
The survey results also indicate that the speed of the service is the most valued characteristic:
56% of users said it is the most important reason for using informal transport (see figure 19,
appendix). As mentioned above, most users combine several modes of transport, and informal
service usually is the last or first phase of their travel. People trust that this service will take them
to or from home faster. The second most appreciated factor of informal transit is that people can
sit; 25% of the respondents use informal transit because it is impossible to get a seat on public
transit. If we add this percentage to other options like traveling in less crowded vehicles than
public buses or having good customer service, the result is that 36% of the users of informal
transit value comfort. On the one hand, this result is relevant because, according to the
municipality, 80% of public transport vehicles exceed their occupancy rate in peak hours
(MDMQ 2014). On the other hand, 18% of the people use informal transport because they lack
public transport options, 15% of respondents suggested it was because of the price, and 11%
cited that the frequency and schedule influenced their choice of service. In general, informal
transport offers people some benefits they do not find in formal bus services. Safety is also
another compelling reason for choosing informal transit service for 16% of the respondents. The
data on this indicator seen by gender shows that 62% of the answers were from women and 38%
from men. This result is corroborated by interviews with transit providers, who indicated that
people chose their services because they perceive it to be safe.
The survey results revealed the perception of security in informal transport units by gender,
especially among women (see figure 20, appendix). Results show that 35% of users said they felt
safer against a sexual harassment situation; of this percentage, 58% are women. Regarding
robberies, 34% said informal transport is safer, and 55% of these respondents were also women.
If compared with public transport, 13% of those surveyed said informal transport is equally safe.
From this percentage, 53% of respondents were women and 47% were men. Finally, 18% of
users responded they felt informal transit is as safe as a private car, of which 56% were women
and 44% were men. One of the common complaints of public transport users is sexual

26
harassment, particularly among women. According to the Survey on Violence in Public Spaces
carried out in the Administrations Eloy Alfaro and Quitumbe, 68.4% of the women said they had
suffered some form of harassment or sexual abuse (UN Women 2011). As such, a question about
this topic was included in the survey, showing that 10% have experienced this kind of situations
at informal transport vehicles, evidencing higher security conditions. During the interviews,
transit providers mentioned that users can and will complain with the company in the event of
sexual harassment, and they would take actions against the perpetrator if is one of the drivers.
Also, users mentioned that because there are few people in the vehicle and everyone is seated,
harassment or violence are not likely to happen (see section B).
Finally, the survey data enabled us to evaluate the service to understand it in comparison to
formal transit. This was complementary to our assessment that informal transport is a service that
exists between services and is an intermodal option for urban residents. On a scale of 1 to 10
(with 10 being excellent), 17% of users value the service as a 7/10, 25% ranked it as 8/10, 16%
as 9/10, and 21% as 10/10. This means that 79% of the users evaluate the service positively,
which is a higher percentage if compared to formal public transport options (as 9 of 10 users
believe formal service has continued to decline) (El Telegrafo 2017). According to respondents’
comments, informal transit service is good in general because they can travel fast, safely, and
comfortably. Plus, they know the company and the drivers, therefore they trust them, since
usually they are people from the same neighborhood. These comments, in addition to the
observations described on previous sections of this investigation, suggest that there is an element
that continues to return to the neighborhood unit.
In this section, we have detailed the results related to the informal transit user. The motivation
behind this survey was to apprehend the user’s perspective, which often is missing in research
conducted on informal transit. Studies in the field of transit often detail the perspective of the
companies or their relationship with state institutions. However, our multilayered analysis
depends on individuals that consume their neighborhood services. It becomes evident that users
are not being represented in the planning process of transit. This is further verified by interviews
with city officials that denied the existence of informal transit. Responses from several top
officials and politicians claimed informal transit does not exist and that users are committing a
legal infraction by using it (Sánchez 2017). In fact, their transit needs are being covered by
informal transit which exists in spaces between land and transit or are intermodal points of
connection. There are multiple logics that surface in this section that complement the findings
presented from the perspective of transit providers, as users’ responses show how they adapt to
the collective systems that interlink formal and informal services. Next, we discuss the findings
of the spatial aspects of informal transit routes to grasp how they are land-oriented.
d) Locating Informal Routes
Thus far we have drawn attention to the complex web of logics that makes the world of informal
transit in Quito function and work alongside the formal networks of public transit. As our main
intent in this investigation is to expose the relationship between land use regulation and informal
transit routes, we now turn to this last aspect of our analysis. In the previous sections, we
determined that informal transit provision starts at the neighborhood level, but this cannot only
be considered a spatial unit of analysis of the built environment. Instead, we suggested that

27
informal transport starts from a neighborhood unit and adapts to its in/visible logics to move to
and from their neighborhoods. Now, we proceed to discuss initial results from the GPS analysis
related to the participation of informal transit providers.
Throughout the data collection process, it became clear that drivers went to areas outside of “the
map,” or were moving in-between regulated, centric areas of the city. However, other routes
function as intermodal transit services between major public transit lines. This was evident from
participant observation as well as the tabulated data that the GPS devices provided.
Table 2: Sample Driving Record from GPS Device
Unit
: 860599001131317
Día
Hora
Salida
Dirección Salida
Tiempo
en Mov.
Distancia
Velocidad
Max
Velocidad
Promedio
Hora
Llegada
Dirección de
llegada
Estac.
3/29/2017
12:00:00
AM
9:27:09
AM
Avenue
Gualberto Perez.
Quito
, Pichincha, EC. 00:12:17
0.14
5.47
2.09
9:39:26
AM
Avenida Pedro
Vicente
Maldonado.
Quito, Pichincha,
EC.
00:06:10
3/29/2017
12:00:00
AM
9:45:36
AM
Avenida Pedro Vicente
Maldonado
. Quito,
Pichincha, EC.
00:36:11
3.4
16.28
4.9
10:21:47
AM
Hualcopo. Quito,
Pichincha, EC.
00:49:02
3/29/2017
12:00:00
AM
11:10:49
AM
Jauja
. Quito, Pichincha, EC. 00:05:35
0.23
15.66
4.39
11:16:24
AM
Puruhá. Quito,
Pichincha, EC.
00:29:31
3/29/2017
12:00:00
AM
12:04:14
PM
Puruhá
. Quito, Pichincha,
EC
. 00:18:47
1.96
23.36
11.45
12:23:01
PM
Unnamed Road.
Quito, Pichincha,
EC.
00:11:56
3/29/2017
12:00:00
AM
12:34:57
PM
Unnamed
Road. Quito,
Pichincha
, EC. 01:06:37
6
32.87
7.82
1:41:34
PM
Puruhá. Quito,
Pichincha, EC.
00:05:39
3/29/2017
12:00:00
AM
1:47:13
PM
Puruhá
. Quito, Pichincha,
EC
. 00:33:20
4.22
25.79
11.44
2:20:33
PM
General Pintag.
Quito, Pichincha,
EC.
00:31:08
3/29/2017
12:00:00
AM
2:51:41
PM
General
Pintag. Quito,
Pichincha
, EC. 01:29:18
10.57
29.76
4.77
4:20:59
PM
R. Moran. Quito,
Pichincha, EC.
00:10:24
Source: GPS device records (Optimus Tracker 2017)
The different trajectories of informal transit make up a complex picture that shows that informal
transit goes between areas that are zoned for specific uses (albeit still off the map). Data from
GPS devices show different data points such as tracks, addresses, time in movement, velocity,
etc. (see table 2). These indicators enabled us to keep track of the units throughout the data
collection process. Furthermore, it allows us to see how routes were formed after agglomerated
data was assembled over time. The driving reports also documented how informal transit went in
between bus lines, as every data point is accounted for.

28
Figure 5: Sample Trajectories of GPS Unit
Source: GPS circulations, downloaded from Optimus Tracker (Optimus Tracker 2017)
These two trajectories represent how we have assembled routes to ascertain that it is a valid route
that the interview would report on. We verified the pattern of the trajectory repetition using the
data on driving records. Based on the dates that companies used the GPS devices, we filtered the
data to define the routes based on the repetition of trajectories before loading it into mapping
software. Next, we took the data for the companies that we worked with.
We present our findings in the following map (figure 6) developed with the participation of
informal transit companies. Trajectories were downloaded in kml files and edited in map
matching. Then they were subsequently loaded into mapping software where they were arranged
with shape files that we obtained from the municipal government open data project (DMQ
2017).iv The source of all map backgrounds comes from OpenStreetMaps (OpenStreetMap
2017).v For comparison, figure 7 shows the density of existing formal transit stations. Figure 8
reflects the population densities and growth of the city in 2010 and figure 9 depicts the informal
transit lines along the fastest growing edges of Quito.

29
Figure 6: Informal Transit Line Figure 7: Formal Transit Bus Services
(density of bus and metro stops)
Sources for both figures: Authors’ GPS devices, DMQ STHV 2016, Esri, HERE, DeLorme, Intermap, increment P
Corp., GEBCO, USGS, FAO, NPS, NRCAN, Geobase, IGN, Kadaster N, Ordinance SurveyEsri Japan, METI, Esri
China (Hong Kong), swisstopo, MapmyIndia,  OpenStreetMap contributors, and the GIS user community
When we compare figure 6 with figure 8, we can see how informal transport routes have darker
colors not only in consolidated but also in expansion areas—defined since 2003 as new urban
land to be incorporated to the city. Zones like Calderon, Pomasqui, San Antonio, Conocoto
(where Loma de Puengasi is located), Cumbaya, and Llano Chico (close to La Bota), are part of
the informal routes identified. The maps show that informal transport is oriented toward
expansion zones of the city, that might be or not informal, but have recently experienced
urbanization processes.

30
Figure 8: Urban Land Incorporation Stages in Quito
Source: IRD 2003

31
Figure 9: Generalized Population of Quito (Housing Data from 2010) and Informal Transit
Source: Authors’ GPS devices, DMQ STHV 2016, INEC 2010, Esri, HERE,MapmyIndia,  OpenStreetMap
contributors, and the GIS user community
Figures 9 and 10 delineate the relationship between the informal transit lines and the population
density of the city. Figure 9 depicts the links between the routes and the faster growing edges of
the urban area. The population density of Quito (based on housing data from 2010) was overlaid
with informal lines. The map’s darkest shade of turquoise captures how the urban core continues
to be the most densely populated area and where informal transit intensively serves. Figure 10
indicates the faster growing areas of the city in yellow. These areas experienced rapid population
growth at a rate of more than 50% between 2001 and 2010. This map exposes how Quito is
growing and informal transit is keeping up with demand in comparison to formal transit. In that
sense, informal transit lines can serve as a proxy to understand where to put public transit lines
and where land markets are growing.

32
Figure 10: Informal Transit Lines and Areas That Experienced Rapid Growth
Source: Authors’ GPS devices, STHV 2016, Esri, HERE,MapmyIndia,  OpenStreetMap contributors, and the GIS
user community
Together, these maps allow us to spatially locate the distribution of informal transit lines at the
metropolitan scale. They are also important to comprehend the next phase of our analysis. As
discussed above, we used the land use regulation categories established in Municipal Ordinance
127 (DMQ 2016a) and classified them into commercial, industrial, and residential zones. Density
restrictions were incorporated into residential use. Based on the categories established by the
municipality, we then further specified the zones in the following land use regulation categories:
residential urban, residential rural, mixed-use, commercial, industrial, protection areas, public
institutions, and patrimonial. A description of these categories is given in table 5 in the appendix.
The following graph (figure 11) indicates the relationship between informal transit coverage and
the land use regulation categories.

33
Figure 11: Proportion of Land Use Types Within 200 Meters of Informal Transit Line or
Service
Source: Informal transit routes and STHV 2016
The areas that demonstrate the highest level of service include urban residential areas 1+2 and 3,
Multiple, and Protec Beaterio. We combined the analysis of urban residential areas 1+2 because
they are areas with the same characteristics (including limited public facilities, neighborhood
level services, and commercial activity). We note a direct relationship between dense urban
residential areas with neighborhood level services and the use of informal transit. Also, survey
respondents reported that informal transit is usually their first or last leg of travel of the day.
Similarly, Residencial Urbano 3 is a category that allows for more commercial and economic
activity as well as industrial development that has low impact but higher density restrictions. The
category Multiple is mixed, including residential, public facilities, commercial activity and
services. Combined with Residencial Urbano 3, these areas show a high propensity to use
informal transit services.
The Protec Beaterio is an area previously protected by the municipality to act as a buffer around
installations such as tanks of liquid gas from PetroEcuador. In 2016, the size of buffer was
reduced. The high incidence of informal transit in this area is probably an indication of
population growth (see appendix, table 6 for the specific share of land served by informal
transit).
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%

34
Figure 12: Map Protec Beaterio
Source: Source: Authors’ GPS Devices, STHV 2016 and Esri, HERE,MapmyIndia,  OpenStreetMap contributors,
and the GIS user community
Figure 13: Map Resid Urb 3
Source: Authors’ GPS Devices, STHV 2016 and Esri, HERE,MapmyIndia,  OpenStreetMap contributors, and the
GIS user community

35
Overall, the maps show that informal transit services indeed are oriented toward land use
regulation categories. Specifically, we have demonstrated how informal transit lines have built
off existing formal transit lines, but also provide services in unexpected areas such as Protec
Beaterio. This in turn indicates that informal transit offers an alternative competing service to
public transit, as found in studies of informal transit in other countries. Moreover, it highlights
the relationship between urban transport and land use. Cervero states the need to link transit
with land use in order to develop transit services that are accessible to urban activities that are
pro-poor and sustainable (R. B. Cervero 2013). Our results show that informal transit services
are indeed linked with dense residential and mixed-use areas that are characteristics of
sustainable urbanism and transport (Chatman 2013). The Protec Beaterio area, once a buffer
zone, has become highly urbanized and requires attention.
Three areas in Quito metropolitan area that are zoned for agriculture, environmental
sustainability, and non-renewable uses show very little informal transit service. This finding
indicates that land use regulation for these areas has managed to protect zones from population
growth and preserve important environmental resources.
Finally, the results indicate that the relationships between informal transit and land use regulation
are founded in multiple layers of informalities connected to formal urban practices (Waibel
2016). As such, these relationships indicate that informal transit providers coordinate their
services with land use regulation. To further test these arguments, we analyze land use within
200 meters from an informal transit line, or 200 meters from a formal bus stop or train station in
figure 14
Figure 14: Land Use Type Within 200 Meters from an Informal Line or a Formal Transit
Stop
Source: Informal transit routes gathered in 2017 and STHV 2016
This last graph shows that, compared with formal transit, informal transit coverage reaches a
higher proportion of the urban areas when classified according to land use. Though the data is
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
Informal transit
Formal transit

36
not perfectly comparable, we suggest that informal transit captures a wider diversity of land use
categories in comparison to formal transit. There is a propensity to exclude, or not pay attention
to, the ways in which informal transit operates sustaining urban practices that are directed to
marginal populations. This is verified by the transit user survey.
While the DMQ characterizes and quantifies the number of informal settlements, this does not
mean the data available is accurate or completely account for settlement growth. We were able to
obtain the shape files for areas that have recently been legalized, which means that they are in the
process of gaining land titles, basic services, and access to roads.
Figure 15: Recently Legalized Neighborhoods and Informal Transit Lines
Source: Authors’ GPS Devices, STHV 2016 and Esri, HERE,MapmyIndia,  OpenStreetMap contributors, and the
GIS user community
As figure 15 shows, there is a clear relationship between areas that have recently been legalized
and informal transit lines, especially in the north near the La Bota neighborhood, as well as in
Quitumbe in the south. These recently legalized areas are not exhaustive and need to be mapped
for future studies. However, one of the characteristics of informal areas is the lack of public
services including transportation (Connolly and Wigle 2017), and even some legal areas in
process of expansion might lack them. This is primarily because informal and/or peripheral areas
lack proper streets conditions, dissuading the provision of transportation services (buses
deteriorate faster because of lack pavement, holes, irregularities on the grounds, as well as the
small width of the streets.) Also, low passenger demand due to low densities in recent urbanized
areas or where mobility needs are high only in peak hours, make public transport provision not a
profitable business. Long distances might also be a problem because a higher number of vehicles
is required for a lower number of passengers. As a result, where formal transport sees no
opportunities for a good business, informal companies expand their services.

37
Conclusions
In this paper, we have discussed the relationship between informal transport and urban land as
well as the multiple logics that influence this service. The principal finding specifies that
informal transit routes establish a relationship with land use regulation and that informal routes
have clear links with formal transit. This indicates that informal transit can anchor dense urban
areas or areas not easily accessed by transit, as well as recently regularized areas. The
proliferation of informal transit services is planned by urban residents who take into
consideration categories such as neighborhoods and densely populated residential areas. Areas
with highest population growth are sustained by informal transit services, not public transit.
Results also show that informal services function as ride-sharing services for transfers and can
complement multimodal transit services. Our data indicate that informal transit lines have a
correlation to the fastest growing areas in Quito. This means that informal transit can serve as a
proxy to understand how to integrate these areas with the public transit network. It also suggests
that informal transit lines can signal where land markets are burgeoning.
The emergence of informal transport services is generally related to the creation or consolidation
of new neighborhoods (often informal) that lack public transport services. However, it also arises
due to the deficiencies of regular transportation, both in terms of geographical coverage and
schedules, frequency, capacity (overcrowding particularly during peak hours), and security
against theft and harassment. The absence or low quality of public transport, which does not
respond quickly to the growth of the population and demand, sets the stage for informal transit to
establish itself as an alternative. In fact, informal transport comes to structure the neighborhood
and affects its consolidation process. Further, because in some areas the demand is not high
enough for high-capacity public transport service (buses) to be profitable, informal transport is
an intermediate option that guarantees service.
Our findings indicate that there is a direct relationship between the incidence of informal transit
and mixed-use zones and residential urban areas that offer multiple neighborhood services. Thus,
our study contributes to the literature on transit-oriented development, as it looks specifically at
the role of informal transit and its necessary connection to land use. At the same time, this
research shows the importance of transport, independently of its legal status, for
consolidating/upgrading urban areas guaranteeing people’s rights of mobility. From this
perspective, our study contributes to the field of urban informality and how unregulated practices
such as informal transit can contribute to our understanding of sustainable, bottom-up urbanism.
Understanding the relationship between land use and informal transport means focusing on how
all practices are a form of planning. Informality, in any of its expressions, from housing to work
and transport, is a set of practices that become a form of urbanization, “rather than as the binary
‘other’ to the formal sector” (Connolly and Wigle 2017, 186). Therefore, one should overcome
the antagonism between formal and informal, or legal and illegal, to break the dominant
paradigm of understanding only some forms of public transport (buses, BRT, metro). Instead of
chasing and delegitimizing informal transport, we argue the importance of how it contributes to
meeting peoples’ needs, expanding the urban economy, resolving mobility challenges, and
integrating citizens to the city. This research indicates that through the lens of informal transit,
the results can contribute to a vital discussion on the practices of people outside of formal
planning processes for satisfying their commuting needs and what they do to improve transit and
simultaneously integrate transportation with land use. We demonstrate how the neighborhood

38
unit needs to be accounted for as a socio-spatial unit, as an integral component to how, why and
where informal transit companies trace their routes.
The research uses multiple methods starting from an ethnographic perspective to engage and
understand the social world of informal transport and its connection to urban land. We created a
moving assemblage to carefully pull together specific pieces of data which we have begun to
interpret in this paper. Starting from an ethnographic perspective is necessary to explore and
understand the organized knowledge behind how informal transit works from the perspective of
informal transit drivers. Yet, it was necessary to use multiple methods to understand how
informal transit is related to urban land. Our approach was created to pull together neglected
components of research, starting from considering the moving configuration comprised of
informal drivers, their routes, the companies, the cars, urban land, and the social networks
required to make the service work. Multiple methods were used and built on one another to be
able to carefully craft each layer of analysis, starting from the neighborhood level as a socio-
spatial unit. Subsequently, we studied subjects that are providers and users of informal transit
outside formal planning processes. For this, we focused on the invisible logics that sustain
informal transit decisions on how companies are formed, where the routes go, and rationalities
behind. To do this, it was necessary to rely on quantitative methods to engage in an intercept
survey. Overall, the results of the survey of users confirmed information obtained during
interviews on why and where companies define their routes along with a better understanding of
why urban residents use these services. Results showed that people prefer informal transit for
more safety, efficiency and as a service connecting formal routes. Finally, we used GPS
technology to conduct a spatial analysis to represent these findings. This spatial analysis captures
how we fundamentally believe that informal transit is land oriented because it works alongside
(and at sometimes contests) formal transit as well as land use regulation.
Understanding informal transport from a public policy perspective is urgent to link land use and
transport policies, including policies toward neighborhood legalization which currently do not
consider the provision of transport services. We aim to start a debate about what is happening
with this citizen-driven solution to mobility demands. This study is a first step to evaluate what
the municipality is doing and what it can do going forward. This implies considering informal
transit beyond the discussion of their illegality as the number of companies keep growing. It is
imperative to have clear public policies that prevent the formation of new transport mafias, but
that at the same time, satisfy the needs of the population by encouraging local economies.
Companies are gaining power and influence in the neighborhoods and their power can be such as
to limit the entry of formal public transport.
The policy implications that we derive from this study are based on empirical data and are
inspired by current public transit principles and trends (McLeod et al. 2017, 226–234). First,
evidence suggests that informal transit lines can be integrated with other transport services in the
urban mobility system. Informal transit offers unique door-to-door services and meet infrequent
transit needs that formal systems do not. Second, a new governance scheme is needed to generate
collaboration between actors involving state-recognized institutions, informal transit companies,
and urban residents. This scheme supports the role of stakeholders or residents that can broaden
the scope of transit services in cities. Third, the findings linking informal transit and land use
categories in Quito suggest that urban design interventions should be expanded to integrate

39
informal transit into dense and less-densely populated areas that have topographic challenges.
Fourth, urban planning challenges are not always solved by rational planning approaches and,
therefore, substantial collaboration with agencies and urban residents are required to better
regulate and reform the transit sector. Reform in this sector means coordination with
cooperatives and accepting more flexible mobility patterns. Sixth, public transit networks are not
currently part of the regularization of informal settlements, although they should be considered a
basic infrastructural service. Overall, informal transit is a sustainable transit option to be
considered within equity policies and goals for cities.

40
References
Álvarez Rivadulla, M. J., and Bocarejo, D. (2014). Beautifying the Slum: Cable Car Fetishism in
Cazucá, Colombia. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 38(6), 2025–
2041. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2427.12201
Ames, A., Mateo-Babiano, I. B., and Susilo, Y. O. (2014). Transport workers’ perspective on
Indigenous transport and climate change adaptation. Transportation Research Record:
Journal of the Transportation Research Board, 2451, 1–9. https://doi.org/10.3141/2451-
01
Appadurai, A. (1988). The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective.
Cambridge University Press.
Badger, E. (2014, February 3). This Is What Informal Transit Looks Like When You Actually
Map It. Retrieved May 5, 2017, from
http://www.theatlanticcities.com/commute/2014/02/what-informal-transit-looks-when-
you-actually-map-it/8283/
Barad, K. (2003). Posthumanist Performativity: Toward an Understanding of How Matter Comes
to Matter. Signs, 28(3), 801–831. https://doi.org/10.1086/345321
Bonnel, P. (2009). Transport Survey Methods: Keeping Up with a Changing World. Emerald
Group Publishing.
Brand, P., and Dávila, J. D. (2011). Mobility innovation at the urban margins. City, 15(6), 647–
661. https://doi.org/10.1080/13604813.2011.609007
Büscher, M., Urry, J., and Witchger, K. (Eds.). (2010). Mobile Methods. Abingdon, Oxon; New
York, NY: Routledge.
Caldeira, T. P. (2017). Peripheral urbanization: Autoconstruction, transversal logics, and politics
in cities of the global south. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 35(1), 3–
20. https://doi.org/10.1177/0263775816658479
Caldeira, T. P. R. (2012). Imprinting and Moving Around: New Visibilities and Configurations
of Public Space in São Paulo. Public Culture, 24(2 67), 385–419.
https://doi.org/10.1215/08992363-1535543
Calthorpe, P. (2010). Urbanism in the Age of Climate Change. Island Press.
Castells, M. (1984). The City and the Grassroots: A Cross-Cultural Theory of Urban Social
Movements (New edition edition). Berkeley: University of California Press.
Castells, M., and Grilló, E. (2006). Problemas de investigación en sociología urbana. México:
Siglo Veintiuno Editores. Retrieved from http://trove.nla.gov.au/version/32866428
Cervero, R. (2000). Informal Transport in the Developing World. UN-HABITAT.
Cervero, R. (2002). BUILT ENVIRONMENTS AND MODE CHOICE: TOWARD A
NORMATIVE FRAMEWORK. World Transit Research. Retrieved from
http://www.worldtransitresearch.info/research/2102
Cervero, R. B. (2013). Linking urban transport and land use in developing countries. Journal of
Transport and Land Use, 6(1), 7–24.
Cervero, R., and Golub, A. (2007). Informal transport: A global perspective. Transport Policy,
14(6), 445–457. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tranpol.2007.04.011
Cervero, R., and Landis, J. (1995). The Transportation-Land Use Connection Still Matters.
ACCESS Magazine, 1(7). Retrieved from http://escholarship.org/uc/item/7x87v1zk

41
Cervero, R., Sarmiento, O., Jacoby, E., Gomez, L., and Neiman, A. (2009). Influences of Built
Environments on Walking and Cycling: Lessons from Bogota. World Transit Research.
Retrieved from http://www.worldtransitresearch.info/research/2474
Chatman, D. G. (2013). Does TOD Need the T? Journal of the American Planning Association,
79(1), 17–31. https://doi.org/10.1080/01944363.2013.791008
Christensen, P., Mikkelsen, M. R., Nielsen, T. A. S., and Harder, H. (2011). Children, Mobility,
and Space: Using GPS and Mobile Phone Technologies in Ethnographic Research.
Journal of Mixed Methods Research, 5(3), 227–246.
https://doi.org/10.1177/1558689811406121
Collins, C., Jensen, K., and Auyero, J. (2017). A Proposal for Public Sociology as Localized
Intervention and Collective Enterprise: The Makings and Impact of Invisible in Austin.
Qualitative Sociology, 1–24. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11133-017-9353-z
Connolly, P., and Wigle, J. (2017). (Re)constructing Informality and “Doing Regularization” in
the Conservation Zone of Mexico City. Planning Theory and Practice, 18(2), 183–201.
https://doi.org/10.1080/14649357.2017.1279678
Coutard, O., and Guy, S. (2007). STS and the City: Politics and Practices of Hope. Science,
Technology, and Human Values, 32(6), 713–734.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0162243907303600
Crane, R. (2000). The Influence of Urban Form on Travel: An Interpretive Review. CPL
Bibliography, 15(1), 3–23. https://doi.org/10.1177/08854120022092890
de la Bellacasa, M. P. (2011). Matters of care in technoscience: Assembling neglected things.
Social Studies of Science, 41(1), 85–106. https://doi.org/10.1177/0306312710380301
DMQ. (2002). Plan Maestro de Transporte para el Distrito Metropolitano de Quito. Quito,
Ecuador: Municipio del Distrito Metropolitano de Quito. Retrieved from
http://www.flacsoandes.edu.ec/libros/103420-opac
DMQ. (2009). Plan Maestro de Movilidad para el Distrito Metropolitano de Quito 2009-2025
(p. 27). Quito, Ecuador: Municipio del Distrito Metropolitano de Quito. Retrieved from
http://www.flacsoandes.edu.ec/libros/digital/39698.pdf
DMQ. (2012a). Plan Metropolitano de Desarrollo y Ordenamiento Territorial. Municipio del
Distrito Metropolitano de Quito. Retrieved from
http://www.quito.gob.ec/documents/PMDOT.pdf
DMQ. (2012b). Plan Metropolitano de Ordenamiento Territorial 2012–2022. Municipio del
Distrito Metropolitano de Quito. Retrieved from
http://cite.flacsoandes.edu.ec/media/2016/01/Alcaldia-de-Quito_2012_Plan-
metropolitano-de-ordenamiento-territorial-2012-2022.pdf
DMQ. (2013). La Movilidad en Quito: un proyecto transformador. Boletín Estadístico Mensual
ICQ, (21), 2.
DMQ. (2014). Diagnóstico de la Movilidad en el Distrito Metropolitano de Quito para el Plan
Metropolitano de Desarrollo Territorial (PMOT) (p. 24). Quito, Ecuador: Municipio del
Distrito Metropolitano de Quito. Retrieved from http://gobiernoabierto.quito.gob.ec/wp-
content/uploads/documentos/pdf/diagnosticomovilidad.pdf
DMQ. (2016a). Ordinance 127: Land Use Categories. DMQ. Retrieved from
http://www7.quito.gob.ec/mdmq_ordenanzas/Ordenanzas/ORDENANZAS%20MUNICI
PALES%202013/ORDM%200432%20-%20REFORMA%20ORD.%20172%20-
%20REGIMEN%20ADMINISTRATIVO%20DEL%20SUELO%20DMQ..pdf

42
DMQ. (2016b, July). ORDM-127 Plan Metropolitano de Desarrollo y Ordenamiento Territorial.
DMQ. Retrieved from
http://www7.quito.gob.ec/mdmq_ordenanzas/Ordenanzas/ORDENANZAS%20MUNICI
PALES%202016/ORDM%20-
%20127%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20Plan%20Metropolitano%20de%20Desarroll
o%20y%20Ordenamiento%20Territorial%20-%20Ref.%20ORDM-041.pdf
DMQ. (2017). Geofiles of Metropolitan District of Quito. DMQ. Retrieved from
http://gobiernoabierto.quito.gob.ec/?page_id=1114
El Telegrafo. (2016, August 3). Los usuarios del transporte público demandan seguridad y no
wifi. El Telegrafo, p. 1.
El Telegrafo. (2017, January 4). 9 de cada 10 usuarios del transporte público piensan que el
servicio no mejora en Quito. El Telegrafo, p. Spanish.
Empresa Pública Metro de Quito. (2011). Encuesta de Movilidad. Municipio del Distrito
Metropolitano de Quito.
Ewing, R., and Cervero, R. (2001). Travel and the Built Environment: A Synthesis.
Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, 1780,
87–114. https://doi.org/10.3141/1780-10
Ewing, R., and Cervero, R. (2010). Travel and the Built Environment. Journal of the American
Planning Association, 76(3), 265–294. https://doi.org/10.1080/01944361003766766
Falconer, R., and Richardson, E. (2010). Rethinking urban land use and transport planning –
opportunities for transit-oriented development in Australian cities case study Perth.
Australian Planner, 47(1), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1080/07293680903510519
Figueroa, O. (2005). Transporte urbano y globalización: Políticas y efectos en América Latina.
EURE (Santiago), 31(94), 41–53. https://doi.org/10.4067/S0250-71612005009400003
Fortun, K. (2012). Ethnography in Late Industrialism. Cultural Anthropology, 27(3), 446–464.
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1548-1360.2012.01153.x
Gamble, J. (2017). Experimental Infrastructure: Experiences in Bicycling in Quito, Ecuador.
International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, n/a-n/a.
https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2427.12449
Gamble, J., Snizek, B., and Nielsen, T. S. (2017). From people to cycling indicators:
Documenting and understanding the urban context of cyclists’ experiences in Quito,
Ecuador. Journal of Transport Geography, 60, 167–177.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2017.03.004
Gilbert, A. (2006). Good Urban Governance: Evidence from a Model City? Bulletin of Latin
American Research, 25(3), 392–419. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0261-3050.2006.00204.x
Glaeser, E. L., Gyourko, J., and Saks, R. E. (2005). Why Have Housing Prices Gone Up?
American Economic Review, 95(2), 329–333.
https://doi.org/10.1257/000282805774669961
Golub, A., Balassiano, R., Araújo, A., and Ferreira, E. (2009). Regulation of the informal
transport sector in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: welfare impacts and policy analysis.
Transportation, 36(5), 601–616. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11116-009-9215-y
Goytia, C., de Mendoza, C., and Pasquini, R. (2010). Land Regulation in the Urban
Agglomerates of Argentina and its Relationship with Households’ Residential Teunre
Condition. Working Paper, Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. Retrieved from
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/252326061_Land_Regulation_in_the_Urban_A
gglomerates_of_Argentina_and_its_Relationship_with_Households’_Residential_Tenure

43
_Condition?el=1_x_8&enrichId=rgreq-3b167398b2aa270fcafa7eff283d1092-
XXX&enrichSource=Y292ZXJQYWdlOzI2ODMzNDE4OTtBUzo0MjY1NjE1OTQ3Nj
EyMTlAMTQ3ODcxMTYxNzk5MQ==
Goytia, C., and Pasquini, R. (2012). Assessing Urban Land Use Regulation in Argentina:
Literature Review and Research Strategy. Working Paper, Lincoln Institute of Land
Policy.
Guerra, E. (2014). Mexico City’s suburban land use and transit connection: The effects of the
Line B Metro expansion. Transport Policy, 32, 105–114.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tranpol.2013.12.011
Guillen, M. D., Ishida, H., and Okamoto, N. (2013). Is the use of informal public transport
modes in developing countries habitual? An empirical study in Davao City, Philippines.
Transport Policy, 26, 31–42. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tranpol.2012.03.008
Gupta, D., Chen, H.-W., Miller, L., and Surya, F. (2010). Improving the efficiency of demand-
responsive paratransit services. World Transit Research. Retrieved from
http://www.worldtransitresearch.info/research/3528
Holston, J. (1989). The Modernist City: An Anthropological Critique of Brasilia. University of
Chicago Press.
INEC. (2010). Población e Indicadores del Distrito Metropolitano de Quito. Distrito
Metropolitano de Quito, Secretaría de Territorio Habitat y Vivienda. Retrieved from
http://sthv.quito.gob.ec/images/indicadores/parroquia/Demografia.htm
IRD. (2003). Etapas de incorporación del suelo urbano en el DMQ. Quito, Ecuador: DMQ.
Retrieved from http://www.gifex.com/detail/2011-10-25-14680/Etapas-de-incorporacin-
del-suelo-urbano-en-el-Distrito-Metropolitano-de-Quito-2003.html
Joewono, T. B., and Kubota, H. (2005). The Characteristics of Paratransit and Non-Motorized
Transport in Bandung, Indonesia. Journal of the Eastern Asia Society for Transportation
Studies, 6, 262–277. https://doi.org/10.11175/easts.6.262
Kahn, M. E., Glaeser, E., and Rappaport, J. (2008). Why Do the Poor Live In Cities? The Role of
Public Transportation. Retrieved from https://dash.harvard.edu/handle/1/2958224
Kassa, F. (2014). Informal transport and its effects in the developing world: a case study of
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Journal of Transport Literature, 8(2), 113–133.
https://doi.org/10.1590/S2238-10312014000200006
Latour, B. (1987). Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers Through Society.
Harvard University Press.
Latour, B., and Woolgar, S. (1979). Laboratory Life: The Construction of Scientific Facts.
Princeton University Press.
Lindau, L., Hildago, D., and Facchini, D. (2010). Bus Rapid Transit in Curitiba, Brazil A Look at
the Outcome After 35 Years of Bus-Oriented Development. World Transit Research.
Retrieved from http://www.worldtransitresearch.info/research/3898
Lugo, A. E. (2013). CicLAvia and human infrastructure in Los Angeles: ethnographic
experiments in equitable bike planning. Journal of Transport Geography, 30, 202–207.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2013.04.010
Marcus, G. E. (1995). Ethnography in/of the World System: The Emergence of Multi-Sited
Ethnography. Annual Review of Anthropology, 24(1), 95–117.
https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.an.24.100195.000523
Mateo-Babiano, I. (2016). Indigeneity of transport in developing cities. International Planning
Studies, 21(2), 132–147. https://doi.org/10.1080/13563475.2015.1114453

44
McCann, E., and Ward, K. (2012). Assembling Urbanism: Following Policies and ‘Studying
Through’ the Sites and Situations of Policy Making. Environment and Planning A, 44(1),
42–51. https://doi.org/10.1068/a44178
McConville, M. (2010, April 7). A Day Without Auto Rickshaws: Inconvenience, Intimidation
and Corruption. Retrieved May 12, 2017, from http://thecityfix.com/blog/a-day-without-
auto-rickshaws-inconvenience-intimidation-and-corruption/
McFarlane, C. (2011). Assemblage and critical urbanism. City, 15(2), 204–224.
https://doi.org/10.1080/13604813.2011.568715
McFarlane, C., and Waibel, M. (2016). Introduction: The Informal-formal Divide in Context. In
C. McFarlane and M. Waibel (Eds.), Urban Informalities: Reflections on the Formal and
Informal (pp. 1–13). Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge.
McLeod, S., Scheurer, J., and Curtis, C. (2017). Urban Public Transport: Planning Principles and
Emerging Practice. Journal of Planning Literature, 32(3), 223–239.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0885412217693570
Mena Segura, A. (2010). Regularización de los asentamientos informales en Quito: análisis de
las políticas públicas. FLACSO sede Ecuador, Quito, Ecuador.
Merriman, P. (2014). Rethinking Mobile Methods. Mobilities, 9(2), 167–187.
https://doi.org/10.1080/17450101.2013.784540
Ministerio de Coordinación de la Política y Gobiernos Autónomos Descentralizados. (2012).
Código Orgánico Territorial, Autonomía y Descentralización (Law) (p. 254). Quito,
Ecuador: República del Ecuador. Retrieved from
http://www.ame.gob.ec/ame/pdf/cootad_2012.pdf
Miraftab, F. (2009). Insurgent Planning: Situating Radical Planning in the Global South.
Planning Theory, 8(1), 32–50. https://doi.org/10.1177/1473095208099297
Observatorio Metropolitano de Seguridad. (2014). Encuesta de Percepción sobre 'Violencia
Sexual Contra las Mujeres en el Sistema Trolebús" (p. 12). Municipio del Distrito
Metropolitano de Quito.
OpenStreetMap. (2017). Map background tiles, map background data layer. Retrieved from
http://tile.openstreetmap.org
Optimus Tracker. (2017). Optimus Tracker. Texas: Optimus Tracker. Retrieved from
www.optimustracker.com
Quigley, J., and Raphael, S. (2005). Regulation and the High Cost of Housing in California.
American Economic Review, 95(2), 323–328.
República del Ecuador. (2008). Constitución del Ecuador. Quito, Ecuador: República del
Ecuador.
República del Ecuador. (2015). Ley Orgánica de Transporte Terrestre, Tránsito y Seguridad Vial.
República del Ecuador. Retrieved from http://www.ant.gob.ec/index.php/ant/base-
legal/ley-organica-reformatoria-a-la-ley-organica-de-transporte-terrestre-transito-y-
seguridad-vial
Robinson, J., and Roy, A. (2016). Debate on Global Urbanisms and the Nature of Urban Theory.
International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 40(1), 181–186.
https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2427.12272
Rodriguez, D., and Vergel, E. (2013). Bus rapid transit and urban development in Latin America.
Land Lines, 25(1), 14–20.
Rose, G. (2007). Visual Methodologies: An Introduction to the Interpretation of Visual
Materials. SAGE.

45
Roy, A. (2005). Urban Informality: Toward an Epistemology of Planning. Journal of the
American Planning Association, 71(2), 147–158.
https://doi.org/10.1080/01944360508976689
Sánchez, E. (2017, June 20). City Councilman, President of Urban Mobility Committee [In
person].
Secretaría de Movilidad. (2017, March 15). Secretaría de Movilidad Desarrolla Estudio Sobre
Oferta y Demanda de Taxis en Quito. Announcement. Retrieved from
http://www.secretariademovilidad.quito.gob.ec/images/1_2015_images/transporte/comun
icados/estudio_oferta_demanda_taxis.pdf
Sengers, F., and Raven, R. (2014). Metering motorbike mobility: informal transport in transition?
Technology Analysis and Strategic Management, 26(4), 453–468.
https://doi.org/10.1080/09537325.2013.870991
Smolka, M. (2003). Informalidad, pobreza urbana y precios de la tierra. Land Lines, 15(1).
Retrieved from http://www.lincolninst.edu/publications/articles/informalidad-pobreza-
urbana-precios-la-tierra
Sonuparlak, I. (2012, February 9). Sustainable Urban Transport in India: Role of the Auto-
Rickshaw Sector. Retrieved May 12, 2017, from http://thecityfix.com/blog/sustainable-
urban-transport-in-india-role-of-the-auto-rickshaw-sector/
Soto, H. D. (1989). The Other Path: The Invisible Revolution in the Third World. Harper and
Row/Perennial Library.
Soto, H. D. (2010). The Mystery of Capital. Random House.
Star, S. L. (1999). The Ethnography of Infrastructure. American Behavioral Scientist, 43(3),
377–391. https://doi.org/10.1177/00027649921955326
UN Women. (2011). Preliminary Study on sexual violence in the south of Quito. United Nations.
Vaca, C. (2011, July 4). El transporte integrado es incómodo e inseguro’. El Comercio, p. 1.
Valenzuela Jr., A., Schweitzer, L., and Robles, A. (2005). Camionetas: Informal travel among
immigrants. Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, 39(10), 895–911.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tra.2005.02.026
Vásconez, M., Etienne, H., and Figueroa, O. (1985). Estudio de La Movilidad Urbana de Los
Sectores Populares de Quito. In Transporte Y Servicios Urbanos En América Latina (pp.
118–130). Arcueil: INRETS.
Waibel, M. (2016). Urban Informalities: Reflections on the Formal and Informal. Routledge.
Yiftachel, O. (2009). Theoretical Notes On `Gray Cities’: The Coming of Urban Apartheid?
Planning Theory, 8(1), 88–100. https://doi.org/10.1177/1473095208099300
Zeiderman, A. (2016). Endangered City: The Politics of Security and Risk in Bogotá. Duke
University Press.

46
Appendix
Survey results
Figure 16: Location of the Surveys Implemented
Source: Authors
Figure 17: Gender and Age of the Survey’s Respondents
Source: Authors
10%
18%
11% 9%
5%
1%
9%
15%
11%
7%
3% 2%
18%
33%
22%
16%
8%
2%
15-20 21-30 31-40 41-50 51-60 More than 61
Female Male Total

47
Figure 18: Main Destination to Travel for the Survey Respondents
Source: Authors
Figure 19: Travel Time According to the Survey Respondents
Source: Authors
36.4%
9.8%
3.8%
1.5%
1.8%
0.5%
36.9%
6.6%
1.0%
1.0%
0.5%
0.3%
73.2%
16.4%
4.8%
2.5%
2.3%
0.8%
Go or come back from work
Go or come back from school
Shopping and paperwork
Others
Taking children to school
Recreation
Total Male Female
14%
25%
18%
22% 21%
5-15 min 16-30 min 31-45 min 45-60 min More than 60
min

48
Figure 20: Reasons for Using Informal Transport According to the Survey Respondents
Source: Authors
Table 3: Transport Mode According the Travel Phase
Mode Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3
Informal 52% 32% 19%
Buses 43% 41% 17%
Legal Taxi 2% 2% 3%
Others: 3% 2% 2%
Walking - 23% 59%
TOTAL 100% 100% 100%
Source: Authors
15%
56%
11%
18%
6%
25%
16%
6% 5%
2%
Price Speed Frecuency
and
schedule
Lack of
public
transport
Deficient
public
transport
I can sit Safety Less
people
than in
buses
Good
customer
service
Otros

49
Figure 21: Safety Perception According to the Survey Respondents
Source: Authors
35% 34%
13%
18%
More safe against sexual
harrasment situations
More safe against
roberies
Equally safe than public
transport
Equally safe than a
private car

50
Survey Instrument
ENCUESTA TAXIRUTAS EN QUITO: PERSPECTIVA DEL USUARIO
Nombre: ____________________________ Lugar: _____________________________
Fecha: ______________________________ Hora: ___________ # Encuesta: ______
Género del encuestado: Tipo de transporte:
Masculino Taxiruta/taxi compartido
Femenino Bus blanco o microbús
Furgoneta/buseta
Presentación: esta encuesta es parte de un proyecto de investigación de la USFQ, financiado por
el Lincoln Institute of Land Policy de EEUU, y tiene como objetivo analizar cómo el transporte
informal contribuye a la movilidad de las y los Quiteños. ¿Nos podría ayudar con unos minutos?
Esta encuesta es anónima y voluntaria.
HÁBITOS
1. ¿Cuál es el motivo principal de este viaje?
Ir al trabajo Ir al lugar de estudio Dejar a su hijo/a en la escuela/colegio
Diversión/recreación Compras/trámites Otro _______________
2. ¿Usualmente cómo es su viaje (SOLO IDA) desde que sale de la casa? Al movilizarse, los
usuarios dependen de una variedad de tipos de transporte para llegar a su destino. Mapear
en las 3 columnas, una opción para cada fase del viaje (no se incluye la opción de caminar).
Ejemplos: Salgo de mi casa y tomo un bus, y luego el taxi ruta para llegar a mi trabajo
Mi papá me lleva en auto hasta la parada de las furgonetas y tomo una para ir a la
universidad
Trayecto 1 Trayecto 2 Trayecto 3
Bus azul Bus azul Bus azul
Bus verde Bus verde Bus verde
Trole/Ecovía/Metrovía Trole/Ecovía/Metrovía Trole/Ecovía/Metrovía
Taxiruta o taxi compartido Taxiruta o taxi compartido Taxiruta o taxi compartido
Taxi amarrillo Taxi amarrillo Taxi amarrillo
Furgoneta o buseta Furgoneta o buseta Furgoneta o buseta
Bus blanco o microbús Bus blanco o microbús Bus blanco o microbús
Auto particular Auto particular Auto particular
Moto Moto Moto
Bicicleta Bicicleta Bicicleta
3. ¿Cuántas veces a la semana realiza este viaje? _______

51
4. ¿Cuánto tiempo dura su viaje (SOLO IDA)? No leer opciones, marcar lo que diga la
persona
5 a 15 min 16 a 30 min 31 a 45 45 a 60 min Más de 60 min
OPINIÓN SOBRE LAS TAXIRUTA/BUS BLANCO/FURGONETA
5. ¿Por qué utiliza este tipo de transporte? No leer las opciones, marcar lo que diga la persona
Múltiples respuestas
El precio es bajo
Frecuencia del servicio y horarios
No hay transporte público en mi sector
El transporte público es ineficiente (poca frecuencia, pocos horarios, está saturado)
La atención es buena
Me siento seguro/a
Puedo ir sentada/o
Menor número de personas
Rapidez del viaje
6. Cree usted que este tipo de transporte es: Leer opciones Múltiples respuestas
Más seguro contra situaciones de acoso
Más seguro contra situaciones de robo o asalto
Igual de seguro que el transporte público (bus, Trole, Ecovía, Metrovía)
Igual de seguro que un auto particular
7. ¿En este tipo de transporte, alguna vez se ha sentido acosada/o? (roces, miradas
incomodas, apegos o toques de un extraño)
Sí No
8. En una escala del 1 al 10, califique la calidad del servicio que ofrece el transporte
informal (1 mal, 10 excelente)
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
9. ¿Qué se podría mejorar en este servicio? No leer las opciones, marcar lo que diga la persona
Múltiples respuestas
Atención al usuario
Mantenimiento mecánico el auto
Aseo del auto
Respeto a las leyes de tránsito al conducir
Respecto entre pasajeros
Frecuencia de las unidades
Horario de las unidades
Reducir el precio del pasaje

52
DATOS SOCIODEMOGRÁFICOS
10. ¿Cuál es su edad?
15-20 años
21-30 años
41-50 años
31-40 años
51-60 años
Más de 61 años
11. ¿Cuánto gasta usted en transporte a la semana (promedio)? $__________ dólares

53
Geoprocessing
Table 4: Geoprocessing
1) Devices continuously upload to server within the project duration from February 15th to
June 30th, 2017.
2) After research period has finished for every of the 18 DEVICES, each devices data-
stream was downloaded as a KML file.
3) Each of the files was imported to a geodatabase [P]
4) The GPS streams were segmented into 8674 SEGMENTS by TrackToTrip
(https://pypi.python.org/pypi/tracktotrip). [N]
5) All 8674 SEGMENTS were buffered by 200 meters. [O]
6) The SEGMENT BUFFERS were cut by the barrio sector [K] and for each, the
intersecting polygons from [E] were selected and the fraction of each of the land use
classes of [E] within every segment buffer calculated: [S]
7) The SEGMENT BUFFERS were cut by the barrio sector [K] and dissolved into [A].
8) 200m buffers were created from the metro stop theme [] and the bus stop theme [] and
dissolved into [D].
9) Population densities were calculated for formal and informal traffic modes for 2001 and
2010: [B1...4].
10) Areas served by informal and formal transport and stratified by land use classes: [F] and
[G].
Note: Numbers in brackets [*] refer to theme IDs in table 5 below.

54
Table 5: Quito 2017—Overview—Geodata and Methods
theme
ID
table name / shape file
name
what
geoprocessing
method
Data
Source
datatype
# records
A
A_segment_buffer_200_cl
ipped_unioned
Informal
segments
buffered
200m and
then
combined
to 1
polygon.
Buffer (K,
200m).
trimmed by
(K)
GEO-
PROCESS
ING
MULTIPOL
YGON
1
B1
B1_vivendos_formal_200
1
Population
densities in
200m
catchment
areas of
formal
transport in
2001
Clip(D, L)
GEO-
PROCESS
ING
POLYGON
2751
B2
B2_vivendos_formal_201
0
Population
densities in
200m
catchment
areas of
formal
transport in
2010
Clip(D, M)
GEO-
PROCESS
ING
POLYGON
3631
B3
B3_vivendos_informal_20
01
Population
densities in
200m
catchment
areas of
informal
transport in
2001
Clip(A, L)
GEO-
PROCESS
ING
POLYGON
5012
B4
B4_vivendos_informal_20
10
Population
densities in
200m
catchment
areas of
informal
transport in
2010
Clip(D, L)
GEO-
PROCESS
ING
POLYGON
5012
D
D_formal_transport_disso
lved
200 around
Bus stops
and metro
stations.
Buffer
(Busstop +
metrostation,
200m).dissolv
ed()
GEO-
PROCESS
ING
MULTIPOL
YGON
1

55
E
E_puos_ord_127_2016
Land use
classes
from 2016
-
PORTAL
POLYGON
6025
F
F_land_use_classes_infor
mal
Land use
classes
served by
informal
transport.
Clip(A, E)
GEO-
PROCESS
ING
POLYGON
4005
G
G_land_use_classes_form
al
Land use
classes
served by
formal
transport.
Clip(D, E)
GEO-
PROCESS
ING
POLYGON
2369
K
K_barrio_sector
sector
boundary
Dissolve(E)
POLYGON
1
L
L_den_viv_2001
Population
density of
2001
-
PORTAL
POLYGON
4149
M
M_den_viv_2010
Population
density of
2010
-
PORTAL
POLYGON
5993
N
N_segment_original
Segments
produced
by the
tracktotrip
module.
NB:
exceeds K
(barrio...)
Python
GEO-
PROCESS
ING
POLYLINE
8674
O
O_segments_buffered_20
0
Buffers
GEO-
PROCESS
ING
POLYGON
8764
P
P_GPS_point
Derived
from the
KML files
GEO-
PROCESS
ING
POINT
TODO
Q
KML Files
Downloade
d from the
GPS
Service
Server
GPS
UNITS
FILE
18
S
S_puos_ord_127_2016__
uso_actual.xls
Fractions of
19 land use
classes
(uso_actual
) from (E)
O inside K and
then
INTERSECTI
ON AND
INTERSECT
by PUOS
GEO-
PROCESS
ING
TABLE
8567
Source: Authors

56
Table 6: Land Use Regulation Categories
Category Use Description*
Resid Urbano
1+2
Zones with residential use with limited commercial activity and neighborhood services, public
equipment and sectors, some low impact industrial development
Resid Urbano 3
Residential zones that allow for commercial activity, neighborhood sectorial, zonal and metropolitan
level of services, and low impact industrial development
Resid Rural 1
Zones with residential use with limited commercial activity and neighborhood services, public
equipment and sectors
Resid Rural 2
Zones with residential use with limited commercial activity and neighborhood services, public
equipment and sectors, some low impact industrial development
Agricola Resid.
Housing mixed with agricultural use including fishing and hunting, also includes gardening and small-
scale agricultural cultivation
Multiple
Diverse uses including diverse residences, facilities, commerce and services, characterized by
neighborhood, sectoral city and metropolitan zones, low impact industrial development
Patrimonial
Research, inspection and possible excavations of the various archeological sites and resources in Quito
Industrial
We mixed industry 1–4 as this is not the focus of our study, but industrial development understood as
low impact on the environment
Equipamiento
Social services, public services that are categorized differently at scales of neighborhood, sector, zone
of the city and metropolitan level
P. Ecol/Conser.
Patri. N
Historic Preservation: natural areas including ecosystems, faults and relevant elements and services that
are environmentally historic
RN/Prod.
Sostenible
Sustainable agro-fishing related activities; sustainable forests
RNNR
Non-renewable resources such as mining
Protec Beaterio
PetroEcuador facilities
Area promocion
Commercial activity
*For further specification on categories please Ordinance 127:
http://www7.quito.gob.ec/mdmq_ordenanzas/Ordenanzas/ORDENANZAS%20MUNICIPALES%202
016/ORDM%20-
%20127%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20Plan%20Metropolitano%20de%20Desarrollo%20y%20Or
denamiento%20Territorial%20-%20Ref.%20ORDM-041.pdf
Source: DMQ 2012

57
Table 7: Tabulations of Figures 12 and 13
Informal
transit
Formal transit
uso_actual if_area Area f_are If share F share
IF_over
rep
F_over
rep
Resid Urbano 1+2
0.011034413
0.019238545
0.004440202
57%
23%
49%
20%
Resid Urbano 3
0.003643543
0.004303051
0.002040195
85%
47%
77%
45%
Resid Rural 1
3.91865E-05
0.000274014
7.3363E-06
14%
3%
6%
0%
Resid Rural 2
3.95956E-05
0.000561738
0
7%
0%
-1%
-3%
Agricola Resid.
0.000713778
0.009437533
0.000065172
8%
1%
0%
-2%
Multiple
0.001813655
0.002091818
0.001090401
87%
52%
79%
49%
Patrimonial
2.93347E-05
6.60019E-05
2.4474E-06
44%
4%
36%
1%
Industrial
0.000719454
0.001543671
0.000119652
47%
8%
39%
5%
Equipamiento
0.003069491
0.005678596
0.001113093
54%
20%
46%
17%
P. Ecol/Conser. Patri.
0.004659282
0.186709788
0.000659917
2%
0%
-6%
-2%
RN/Prod. Sostenible
0.001250688
0.10969013
1.61856E-05
1%
0%
-7%
-3%
RNNR
5.14188E-05
0.003724458
0
1%
0%
-7%
-3%
Protec Beaterio
2.09028E-05
2.09028E-05
7.0905E-06
100%
34%
92%
31%
Area promocion
0.000330943
0.00064402
6.29365E-05
51%
10%
43%
7%
Source: Authors
i www.optimustracker.com, entering a login active site to view the data as they move.
ii See appendix for survey instrument
iii For all of section C see appendix for tables and charts on survey results.
iv Open data project for the municipality where shape files can be found:
http://gobiernoabierto.quito.gob.ec/?page_id=1114
v See appendix for table on methods for the geoprocessing of data.