Arup and Transport for London to advise on design of new transport governance model for Santiago, Chile

Matías Salazar, Head of the Regional Planning and Development Division, Santiago Metropolitan Regional Government, said:

“We firmly believe that coordination at the regional level is the best way to face current mobility and transportation challenges - the collaboration and willingness that exists today between the national government and the regional government is key to the success of this initiative. 

With the expertise of Arup and TfL, we aim to develop a governance model that not only improves transport efficiency, but also promotes equity and sustainability, integrating crucial aspects such as gender and safety throughout the region. We wish to move steadily forward in this regionalisation process, which has already begun and from which there is no turning back.”

Francisca Astaburuaga Orchard, Executive Director at the Centro de Innovación en Ciudades (UDD), said:

“It has been a privilege to help design a governance model accompanied by experts who participated in the implementation of TfL - a system that has proven to be successful - and learn from their experience to set up a proposal for Santiago´s metropolitan transport authority”.

Matt Yates, Head of Project Consents and Urban Design at Transport for London (TfL) said:

“This collaboration between TfL and Arup has allowed us to share our expertise with Santiago colleagues and to help them in developing a long-term integrated spatial development and transport strategy. This can then be implemented to provide short-, medium- and long-term improvements to the regional government of Santiago for its citizens.

Santiago officials and politicians see the benefit of this integrated planning that has been in place in London for more than 20 years, and through this collaboration we can also learn lessons from our colleagues in Chile to further implement positive change in London.”

The Arup and TfL team successfully hosted the first series of workshops with senior stakeholders in March, exploring key issues and opportunities for the governance of transport and the integration of transport land use in the region of Santiago. These included knowledge sharing sessions on the TfL model that explored synergies between Greater London with its 36 boroughs and Metropolitan Santiago with its 34 municipalities. 

The project will run until late 2024, presenting initial key findings later in the summer.