I have lived in Washington, DC for about 12 years and have seen this city undergo many changes. One of the most visible in the past few years is that more people are riding bikes to work. A big part of this shift is readily available shared bikes through the well-known Capital Bikeshare system. Capital Bikeshare is a public-private partnership between the governments of Washington, DC, Arlington and Alexandria County, VA, and Montgomery County, MD and a company called Alta Bicycle Share, which also operates bike sharing systems in a number of other cities. While the local governments own the bikes and equipment, Alta handles all of the operations. There are many obvious benefits to getting around the city on two wheels, and this partnership between local governments and the private sector has provided a highly popular and quickly expanding service that benefits all types of people who would prefer to hop on a bike. Capital Bikeshare is a great example of how public-private cooperation can improve and diversify services in an urban area, in this case with transportation.

Mario Roberto Duran Ortiz

A Capital Bikeshare station in Washington, DC

Washington, with an advanced public transit system, has the luxury of investing in public private cooperation for alternative transport such as shared bicycles. But what about cities in developing countries with less sophisticated transportation systems, fewer resources and far greater stresses on urban infrastructure due to rapidly growing populations?

As cities and communities around the world become more urbanized, local governments face new challenges providing services in efficient, scalable, and market-oriented ways. Developing countries in particular face enormous challenges as they experience rapid urbanization. Consider that one billion people across the globe currently live in slums without access to clean water, the most basic of every day services. And urban areas are expected to gain 1.4 billion people between 2011 and 2030. USAID’s Sustainable Service Delivery in an Increasingly Urbanized World policy lays out the scale of the challenge and outlines an approach for what can be done. One of the principles of this policy, “Fostering Market Orientation and Public Private Cooperation”, speaks to the need for improving local investment climates and leveraging market financing to scale up viable urban service approaches and technologies.

Transportation is one important public service that urban areas rely on – but how can cities improve transportation with the help of the private sector? Curitiba, Brazil launched the world’s first Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system in the 1970’s in response to rapid urbanization and a fear that a quickly expanding population would negatively impact the character of the city. Curitiba’s BRT inspired many other similar systems in South America and around the globe, and has been so successful that around 80% of the city’s commuters ride reach day, reducing automobile usage by 20 to 30 million trips annually. This has reduced traffic and ambient air pollution tremendously. Taking the next step in its public transport evolution Curitiba recently moved to develop its first underground Metro system, and in 2012 the city entered into a public private partnership worth over $1 billion, using an innovative financing scheme that committed the city to transfer funds to the project only after it was fully operational and the first passenger had paid their fare. The way in which this partnership was shaped helped to ensure financial sustainability for the city and prompt, effective service delivery for its residents. 

Morio

Curitiba's BRT

Improving urban transportation can also be done through less costly measures. For instance, through an ICMA CityLinks partnership between Bekasi, Indonesia, and Gresham, Oregon, the Indonesian city adapted Gresham's computerized traffic modeling system to analyze major transportation problems and assess viable alternatives. With the support of CityLinks, Bekasi relocated street vendors, improved the timing of traffic signals, and made geometric alterations to streets and sidewalks. These changes eliminated gridlock on most of Bekasi’s streets and saved an estimated 400,000 commuters at least an hour of commuting time each day. Traffic congestion is a common problem faced by municipalities worldwide and one of the priority issues selected by several CityLinks’s partnerships. The partnership between Bekasi, Indonesia, and Gresham, Oregon, tackled this complex problem in a large metropolitan area and made a dramatic difference in a short time. The specific measures the partners introduced—data collection and traffic modeling—are inexpensive solutions that can be used to prioritize existing problems and evaluate proposed alternatives. In a world that is rapidly urbanizing there will be a need for large-scale solutions to complex problems, as well as simple interventions that are innovative, practical, and within reach.

Effective collaboration between the public and private sectors can improve service delivery and quality of life while helping to ensure the financial sustainability for local governments. In a rapidly urbanizing world, these partnerships can be on a small or large scale so long as they bring benefits to local residents in ways that are efficient, scalable, and market-oriented. USAID’s Sustainable Service Delivery in an Increasingly Urbanized World policy recognizes that in order to meet the challenges of rapid urbanization, there is an acute need for market-oriented approaches and the leveraging of cooperation between the public and private sectors.

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