TrAnSaNtIaGo

I can't say many things about this transport system, because I'm not from here. I mean, I was born in Santiago, but I've been living here for almost two years. I went to Santiago last year, and I found it awful..it was a nightmare to me. But then, I thought that it wasn't as terrible as people said.
I was used to pay with money (not with the bip card), because I'm from Valparaíso, and the transport systems works different there. But in my opinion, this system is working good, maybe the big problem is that there's a lot of people in Santiago, and the buses and the subway can't cope with all of them. There are periods, specially in the morning, when the buses and the subway are full, and you can't get into them, and you have to wait for the next one; actually, these things can be very terribles, because you can be late to college (in my case).
But I think that there're things that are very good, like the bip system; you can get into three buses, or change from buses to the subway, and you don't have to pay in every one of them, you just pay once. In other cities you have to pay them all, and it's very terrible (specially when you have to go to a further place), because you spend a lot of money travelling.
Other benefit, is that there are designated bus stops, so the driver can't "stop" in any place. Sometimes, in Valparaíso, the bus drivers used to stop in the middle of the street, or sometimes they didn't stop and you had to walk many blocks.
In the other hand, people complains that the system is not working, but some of them don't pay, that is to say, they get into the bus from the back doors, or they don't pass the bip card. One of the problems, also of the transantiago is that the buses are too big, so many of them didn't fit in some streets; but this problem was resolved, because they put into the streets other buses, but smallers.
One of the things that I would change, is that I would put more buses, with schedule (timetable) and with more frequency, so people wouldn't have to wait for the buses.
When the bus is empty, I love the transatiago: is cheaper and fast.

regards,
penny