The regular interurban van [“combi”] services. The case of national services in the province of Buenos Aires

Abstract

The work investigates the service of interurban combis as a relatively recent phenomenon of provision in the short and medium distances within the framework of competition with other transport services and in relation to the cities they link. The origin of the service is relatively recent compared to other modes, with specialization in distances in ranges between 100 to 150 and 300 to 350 km, linking small / medium size cities with large cities. The inhabitants of small / medium-sized towns tend to resort to larger cities in search of services that they do not have or have scarcely. The high daily frequencies, with time amplitude, in high traffic corridors give a certain “geographical specialization” to the service and a closeness with the users that differentiate them from the regular bus service, their closest competitor. Making the phenomenon visible regarding the competition they exercise with regular bus services as well as the lack of an explicit regulatory entity in the national order for this particular type of practice, reveals a certain weakness in the territorial planning framework and of the transport.