Santiago
UMR Index
Score: 43.9%
Sustainable Mobility
Score: 38.9%
Public Transit
Score: 47.2%
| Population | 7.0 million |
| Surface area (km2) | 838 |
| Population-density (people/km2) | 8,398 |
| GDP per capita ($) | 14,777 |
What Santiago Does Well in Urban Mobility
The Chilean capital has successfully promoted active mobility under a National Urban Development Policy that promotes shared use of public space and encourages pedestrian traffic and bicycle use. The city began widening sidewalks, restricting on-street parking, and creating pedestrian-only zones well before the pandemic prompted similar changes around the world, and walking today is the mostpopular mobility mode.
Car ownership levels in Santiago are well below many of its peers. Its residents generally choose to walk or active mobility modes of transport when commuting.
Urban Mobility Readiness Index, Sustainable Mobility and Public Transit scores
Challenges and Opportunities for Santiago’s Transportation System
Santiago does not have a strong cycling infrastructure and relatively few residents opt to cycle around the city. However, the city aims to complete new bike paths by 2025 as part of a national infrastructure plan.
The city's airport is not a hub for international travel with relatively few connecting flights and travelers. However, Santiago opened a new international airport in 2022 and began modernization work on its domestic terminal in 2023 in an effort to accommodate more passengers.
Dimensions of the Urban Mobility Readiness Index score
How Santiago Can Improve Its Public Transportation and Sustainable Mobility
The city lacks a strong multimodal network, relative to its peers. To improve its mobility options, Santiago can introduce a park-and-ride program to allow residents to access the city center from suburban and rural areas. Permitting bikes aboard buses and the metro would encourage greater use of public transit by allowing commuters to use their bikes for the first and last miles of their journeys. Investing in buses with bike racks would provide additional support for multimodality. The government in 2023 signed an agreement with the United Kingdom to strengthen national railways with an emphasis on multimodality.
Santiago also can consider extending the operating hours of its public transit network to encourage ridership. The system operates an average of 16 hours a day, well behind the 20 hours of regional peer Sao Paulo. Extending hours would require investments in more trains, additional drivers, and increased police and security presence during night-time hours.