1001 Smart Cities
🇨🇴 Bogotá

TransMiCable: the cable car that got a control group

🤖 AI-generated summary · ◆ 1 sourced claim · 🔎 Last verified

This overview was generated with AI from the public sources listed below and checked against them before publication. It has not had a complete human fact-check — treat it as a starting point and follow the sources.

1 sourced claim on this page, none individually verified yet — turn on “Sources in the text” to see each one.

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✎ Updated 20 Aug 2026 Publication date recorded for 11 sources. What changed →

Reported travel time fell from 110.0 to 90.2 minutes and women's quality of life rose. Physical activity did not move at all, and the evaluation, built against a hillside district with no cable car, published that too.

Outcome🎯 Succeeded
Evidence🔬 Peer-reviewed
what does this mean?The strongest source behind this entry is an independent peer-reviewed or academic study. It grades who did the looking — not how well the project went. All four grades →
Run byTransMilenio S.A.; operated since December 2023 by the city-owned operator La Rolita
Scale🏘️ District
Cost≈COP 240,000M at opening
FundingCity of Bogotá (IDU), with credit from the national development bank Findeter

Part of 1001 Smart Cities — 1,167 documented projects · 🏙️ 12 more in Bogotá · 🚌 Public transport guide · 🚲 Mobility projects

A gondola of about 3.3 km has linked the hillside settlements of Ciudad Bolívar to the TransMilenio trunk network at Portal del Tunal since December 2018 — four stations, inside the same fare. What distinguishes it is that someone built a counterfactual: the TrUST natural experiment surveyed 2,052 adults here and in San Cristóbal, a comparable hillside district with no cable car, before and after opening. Travel time fell and women's quality of life rose against the control. Physical activity did not move at all, and an independent study of 662 million phone pings found residents travelling more but not into richer parts of the city.

Live 📅 since 2018

📊 Impact

Self-reported one-way travel time for mandatory trips fell from 110.0 to 90.2 minutes in the cable-car area. Against the San Cristóbal control district, quality of life rose 5.81 points for women (95% CI 2.47-9.14) but not significantly for men (0.96, 95% CI -3.65 to 5.57); moderate-to-vigorous physical activity did not change. 1,679 of 2,052 recruited adults completed follow-up. The city reports 44.7 million trips in the first six years, around 25,000 a day.

🎓 Lesson

Bogota is the rare urban cable car with a comparison neighbourhood, and the discipline shows in what the evaluation was willing to publish: no effect on physical activity, gains that reached women and not men, and more trips without more contact between income groups. Mexico City's Cablebus has a defensible cost-per-passenger figure but no counterfactual; this line has both a control district and its own null results.

🚲 MobilityPublic transportSmart ticketingHealth & care

Sources

↗ Frontiers in Public Health — TrUST study protocol (2020)Published 10 March 2020Establishes the design: 'a prospective, quasi-experimental study using a mixed-methods approach' comparing intervention (Ciudad Bolívar, within 800 m of stations) with control (San Cristóbal, selected for similar topography, comparable planned cable car, similar low socioeconomic status and high crime). Baseline Feb-Nov 2018, follow-up 2019. Funders include Wellcome Trust and NIH; institutions Universidad de Los Andes, UC Berkeley, Stanford, Drexel. This is the source for the control-group claim.
↗ The Lancet Global Health — physical activity outcomes of TrUST (2023)Published 18 July 2023Source for the travel-time figure (mandatory-trip one-way time 110.0 → 90.2 minutes in the intervention area) and for the null result: transport walking meeting WHO guidelines rose 11.1 points in the intervention area against 8.0 in control, adjusted OR 1.1, p=0.38 — not significant; accelerometer-measured moderate-to-vigorous activity showed no change. 2,052 recruited, 1,679 followed up. Note the travel-time figure is a within-group before/after number, not a difference-in-differences estimate.
↗ The Lancet Regional Health – Americas — quality of life outcomes of TrUST (2025)Published 19 May 2025Source for the quality-of-life effect sizes, which ARE time-by-group interactions against the control district: females +5.81 points overall (95% CI 2.47-9.14), general health +5.49, psychological domain +3.48; males not significant (0.96, -3.65 to 5.57). No significant effect for either sex on physical health, social relationships or environmental domains. Sample 1,679 (825 intervention, 854 control), 62.8% female, mean age 43.5.
↗ Lutz, Heroy, Kaufmann & O'Clery — causal evaluation using mobile phone data (2025)Published 11 June 2025Independent difference-in-differences event study comparing residents within 500 m of opened stations against residents near FUTURE planned stations; 662 million GPS pings from 902,000 phones, July 2018-June 2019. Finds ≈6.5 additional trips per person per month (≈5%) and +3 points of interest visited, but limited evidence of socioeconomic mixing and no statistically significant increase in visits to high-income neighbourhoods. PREPRINT dated 11 June 2025 — publication status not confirmed; treated as supporting, not load-bearing.
↗ Alcaldía Mayor de Bogotá — six years of TransMiCable operation (29 December 2024)Authority-reported figures: 44.7 million trips over six years, around 25,000 people per day, ≈37,600 service hours, 163 cabins, 24 towers, four stations (Tunal, Juan Pablo II, Manitas, Mirador del Paraíso), ≈13 minutes end to end, capacity 3,600 passengers per hour per direction. The city gives the length as 3.25 km here; other accounts give 3.34 km, hence 'about 3.3 km' in the entry. The 3,600/hour figure is design capacity and is deliberately NOT used as a ridership number.
Show 6 more sourcesShow fewer
↗ Alcaldía Mayor de Bogotá — 2026 fare adjustment for TransMilenio, TransMiCable and TransMiZonalPublished 9 January 2026Establishes the fare mechanism: a single unified fare of COP 3,550 effective 14 January 2026 (a 10.9% rise), with TransMiCable included. Transfers between trunk buses, zonal buses and the cable car are free within a 125-minute window — but only with a PERSONALISED TuLlave card; non-personalised cards pay the same base fare without the transfer benefit. The card itself is covered by a separate atlas entry.
↗ Infobae — TransMiCable service suspended more than 24 hours (4 July 2026)Counterweight on reliability: service failed to open at its usual 04:30 start on Friday 3 July 2026 and was still down after ≈28 hours on Saturday 4 July; specialists from the Austrian manufacturer were involved and no root cause was disclosed. TransMilenio reinforced zonal buses as a substitute. The article gives no availability history.
↗ El Espectador — cause of an earlier TransMiCable suspensionPublished 4 July 2026Reports an earlier outage traced to an electronic card in the control and power system, a specialised part that had to be sourced from outside normal inventory, and cites the operator's claim of availability above 98% since taking over. The 98% figure is operator-reported and is not used in the entry.
↗ El Espectador — 'La Rolita' to operate the Ciudad Bolívar cable carPublished 29 June 2023Source for the operator field: TransMilenio S.A. ratified an inter-administrative agreement making La Rolita, the city-owned Operadora Distrital de Transporte, the operator from 29 December 2023, replacing the earlier Transdev/Fanalca arrangement. Verified through search results and headline; the full article was not fetched.
↗ La República — TransMiCable opens after COP 240,000M investment (2018)Published 27 December 2018Source for the cost figure at opening. Other official figures differ: the IDU cited COP 236,000M including land acquisition, and an earlier design-and-construction figure of COP 164,300M circulates. The range is left visible rather than averaged.
↗ TransMilenio S.A. — official TransMiCable pageOperator's own page. FETCH FAILED: returned HTTP 403 to automated retrieval on 26 July 2026, as Colombian government sites frequently do. No claim in this entry rests on it; the city government's bogota.gov.co pages were used as the authority source instead.

📅 How old is the evidence?

Two clocks, kept apart: when this entry’s sources were published, and what has happened to its record in the atlas. Documented span: since 2018. 10 of 11 sources carry a publication date, from 27 December 2018 to 4 July 2026.

When the sources were published

  1. La República · pressLa República — TransMiCable opens after COP 240,000M investment (2018)
  2. PubMed Central (U.S. National Library of Medicine) · researchFrontiers in Public Health — TrUST study protocol (2020)
  3. El Espectador · pressEl Espectador — 'La Rolita' to operate the Ciudad Bolívar cable car
  4. PubMed Central (U.S. National Library of Medicine) · researchThe Lancet Global Health — physical activity outcomes of TrUST (2023)
  5. Alcaldía Mayor de Bogotá · city governmentAlcaldía Mayor de Bogotá — six years of TransMiCable operation (29 December 2024)
  6. PubMed Central (U.S. National Library of Medicine) · researchThe Lancet Regional Health – Americas — quality of life outcomes of TrUST (2025)
  7. arXiv (preprint repository) · researchLutz, Heroy, Kaufmann & O'Clery — causal evaluation using mobile phone data (2025)
  8. Alcaldía Mayor de Bogotá · city governmentAlcaldía Mayor de Bogotá — 2026 fare adjustment for TransMilenio, TransMiCable and TransMiZonal
Show 2 more dated sourcesShow fewer
  1. Infobae · pressInfobae — TransMiCable service suspended more than 24 hours (4 July 2026)
  2. El Espectador · pressEl Espectador — cause of an earlier TransMiCable suspension

Every source, with links ↑

What happened to this record

  1. Sources last read
  2. Entered the record
  3. Publication date recorded for 11 sources

Every revision, permanent →

Show your work What this page rests on and what it can’t tell you · all 1 claims with their sources · the forensic record

Evidence Passport · public beta 1 addressable claim, 11 source dossiers, one permanent baseline. The passport is unreviewed — an AI-assisted structural migration, not a human or expert endorsement. Every revision keeps a permanent copy under revision history.

Inspect the claims, one by one — verbatim text, sources and caveats for all 1

The text below is copied verbatim from the published record. Each claim names the source dossiers that carry it; caveats stay attached to the claim they qualify.

Claim 1 clm-6716dc1570f0e8db quantitative
Against the San Cristóbal control district, quality of life rose 5.81 points for women (95% CI 2.47-9.14) but not significantly for men (0.96, 95% CI -3.65 to 5.57)
Published field
impact · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this passport
What the mapping says
The TrUST natural experiment surveyed 2,052 adults in Ciudad Bolívar and in San Cristóbal, a comparable hillside district with no cable car, before and after opening.
Caveat
1,679 of the 2,052 recruited adults completed follow-up.

Sources carrying this claim

  1. The Lancet Regional Health – Americas — quality of life outcomes of TrUST (2025)
Forensic record — source dossiers, gaps, hashes and the exact revision this page renders

This layer records what is known about each source, what is still missing, and the exact snapshot this page is rendering. A missing date, archive or hash stays visible as missing.

unreviewed Revision 2026-08-20-source-dates effective 2026-07-26 · created 2026-08-20

Awaiting operator and domain-expert review; publication of this revision implies neither.

sha256:c4cb024db2c1a99c1da80f9bb553f0fcf3208142289482c7ed9db922df309e2b
Revision history → Permanent version link → Machine-readable record → Evidence Constitution →
1
of 1 claims mapped
11
source dossiers
10
publication dates recorded
0
archives linked
0
exact locators
0
content captures hashed

Governance facts carried by the record

Operator
TransMilenio S.A.; operated since December 2023 by the city-owned operator La Rolita
Actor types
utility
Funding model
public
Funding description
City of Bogotá (IDU), with credit from the national development bank Findeter
Cost
≈COP 240,000M at opening
Ownership
Not recorded
Decision rights
Not recorded
Exit conditions
Not recorded

11 source dossiers

Frontiers in Public Health — TrUST study protocol (2020) pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov · background

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-77b4554d3bd3e051
Publisher
Name not classified · pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
2020-03-10
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-07-26
Dossier created
2026-08-20
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

Establishes the design: 'a prospective, quasi-experimental study using a mixed-methods approach' comparing intervention (Ciudad Bolívar, within 800 m of stations) with control (San Cristóbal, selected for similar topography, comparable planned cable car, similar low socioeconomic status and high crime). Baseline Feb-Nov 2018, follow-up 2019. Funders include Wellcome Trust and NIH; institutions Universidad de Los Andes, UC Berkeley, Stanford, Drexel. This is the source for the control-group claim.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
Background source; no baseline claim points here
The Lancet Global Health — physical activity outcomes of TrUST (2023) pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov · background

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-91132ae253df78d2
Publisher
Name not classified · pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
2023-07-18
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-07-26
Dossier created
2026-08-20
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

Source for the travel-time figure (mandatory-trip one-way time 110.0 → 90.2 minutes in the intervention area) and for the null result: transport walking meeting WHO guidelines rose 11.1 points in the intervention area against 8.0 in control, adjusted OR 1.1, p=0.38 — not significant; accelerometer-measured moderate-to-vigorous activity showed no change. 2,052 recruited, 1,679 followed up. Note the travel-time figure is a within-group before/after number, not a difference-in-differences estimate.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
Background source; no baseline claim points here
The Lancet Regional Health – Americas — quality of life outcomes of TrUST (2025) pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov · 1 linked claim

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-12b9d4c871b5b129
Publisher
Name not classified · pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
2025-05-19
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-07-26
Dossier created
2026-08-20
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

Source for the quality-of-life effect sizes, which ARE time-by-group interactions against the control district: females +5.81 points overall (95% CI 2.47-9.14), general health +5.49, psychological domain +3.48; males not significant (0.96, -3.65 to 5.57). No significant effect for either sex on physical health, social relationships or environmental domains. Sample 1,679 (825 intervention, 854 control), 62.8% female, mean age 43.5.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
Lutz, Heroy, Kaufmann & O'Clery — causal evaluation using mobile phone data (2025) arxiv.org · background

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-1f02d9c385efc174
Publisher
Name not classified · arxiv.org
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
2025-06-11
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-07-26
Dossier created
2026-08-20
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

Independent difference-in-differences event study comparing residents within 500 m of opened stations against residents near FUTURE planned stations; 662 million GPS pings from 902,000 phones, July 2018-June 2019. Finds ≈6.5 additional trips per person per month (≈5%) and +3 points of interest visited, but limited evidence of socioeconomic mixing and no statistically significant increase in visits to high-income neighbourhoods. PREPRINT dated 11 June 2025 — publication status not confirmed; treated as supporting, not load-bearing.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
Background source; no baseline claim points here
Alcaldía Mayor de Bogotá — six years of TransMiCable operation (29 December 2024) bogota.gov.co · background

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-518136a93c2dd57b
Publisher
Name not classified · bogota.gov.co
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
2024-12-29
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-07-26
Dossier created
2026-08-20
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

Authority-reported figures: 44.7 million trips over six years, around 25,000 people per day, ≈37,600 service hours, 163 cabins, 24 towers, four stations (Tunal, Juan Pablo II, Manitas, Mirador del Paraíso), ≈13 minutes end to end, capacity 3,600 passengers per hour per direction. The city gives the length as 3.25 km here; other accounts give 3.34 km, hence 'about 3.3 km' in the entry. The 3,600/hour figure is design capacity and is deliberately NOT used as a ridership number.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
Background source; no baseline claim points here
Alcaldía Mayor de Bogotá — 2026 fare adjustment for TransMilenio, TransMiCable and TransMiZonal bogota.gov.co · background

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-124603d3c3630e91
Publisher
Name not classified · bogota.gov.co
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
2026-01-09
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-07-26
Dossier created
2026-08-20
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

Establishes the fare mechanism: a single unified fare of COP 3,550 effective 14 January 2026 (a 10.9% rise), with TransMiCable included. Transfers between trunk buses, zonal buses and the cable car are free within a 125-minute window — but only with a PERSONALISED TuLlave card; non-personalised cards pay the same base fare without the transfer benefit. The card itself is covered by a separate atlas entry.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
Background source; no baseline claim points here
Infobae — TransMiCable service suspended more than 24 hours (4 July 2026) infobae.com · background

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-36b42dd55220e3d4
Publisher
Name not classified · infobae.com
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
2026-07-04
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-07-26
Dossier created
2026-08-20
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

Counterweight on reliability: service failed to open at its usual 04:30 start on Friday 3 July 2026 and was still down after ≈28 hours on Saturday 4 July; specialists from the Austrian manufacturer were involved and no root cause was disclosed. TransMilenio reinforced zonal buses as a substitute. The article gives no availability history.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
Background source; no baseline claim points here
El Espectador — cause of an earlier TransMiCable suspension elespectador.com · background

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-f5b908de20decbf8
Publisher
Name not classified · elespectador.com
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
2026-07-04
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-07-26
Dossier created
2026-08-20
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

Reports an earlier outage traced to an electronic card in the control and power system, a specialised part that had to be sourced from outside normal inventory, and cites the operator's claim of availability above 98% since taking over. The 98% figure is operator-reported and is not used in the entry.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
Background source; no baseline claim points here
El Espectador — 'La Rolita' to operate the Ciudad Bolívar cable car elespectador.com · background

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-e7257286cd9a08ee
Publisher
Name not classified · elespectador.com
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
2023-06-29
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-07-26
Dossier created
2026-08-20
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

Source for the operator field: TransMilenio S.A. ratified an inter-administrative agreement making La Rolita, the city-owned Operadora Distrital de Transporte, the operator from 29 December 2023, replacing the earlier Transdev/Fanalca arrangement. Verified through search results and headline; the full article was not fetched.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
Background source; no baseline claim points here
La República — TransMiCable opens after COP 240,000M investment (2018) larepublica.co · background

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-31bc64599ecb7aa3
Publisher
Name not classified · larepublica.co
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
2018-12-27
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-07-26
Dossier created
2026-08-20
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

Source for the cost figure at opening. Other official figures differ: the IDU cited COP 236,000M including land acquisition, and an earlier design-and-construction figure of COP 164,300M circulates. The range is left visible rather than averaged.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
Background source; no baseline claim points here
TransMilenio S.A. — official TransMiCable page transmilenio.gov.co · background

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-17bf08d22f0c14e8
Publisher
Name not classified · transmilenio.gov.co
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
Not recorded
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-07-26
Dossier created
2026-08-20
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

Operator's own page. FETCH FAILED: returned HTTP 403 to automated retrieval on 26 July 2026, as Colombian government sites frequently do. No claim in this entry rests on it; the city government's bogota.gov.co pages were used as the authority source instead.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
Background source; no baseline claim points here
Known limits of this passport
  • Publisher names and source languages have not yet been classified; domains are recorded without guessing.
  • Existing source notes are descriptive locators, not page- or paragraph-exact citations.
  • A missing archive, publication date or content hash is shown as null rather than inferred.
  • The project-level evidence grade ranks the strongest source in the entry; it is not a truth score for every claim.

Continue exploring

Compare this project

🇨🇴 Metrocable & Social Urbanism · Medellín Medellín's is the older Colombian gondola; Bogotá's 2018 line got a control district in San Cristóbal, and published the nulls it found. 🇲🇽 Cablebus: Cable Cars as Ordinary Public Transit · Mexico City Cablebus has a cost per passenger but no comparison neighbourhood; TransMiCable has one, and reports no gain in physical activity. 🇨🇴 TransMilenio: Bogotá's BRT Trunk Network & Its Late Control Layer · Bogotá The gondola docks into the trunk network at Portal del Tunal under the same fare, and TransMilenio S.A. is the managing entity.

Explore the wider context

🔑 Your Smart City Is Owned by Someone Else📖 Bus rapid transit (BRT)📖 E-ticketing📖 Fare capping
📎 Cite this project

1001 Smart Cities (2026). “TransMiCable: the cable car that got a control group” — Bogotá, Colombia. The Smart City Atlas. https://1001smartcities.org/projects/bogota-transmicable/ (last verified 2026-07-26). Data: CC BY 4.0.

The underlying data is free to reuse with attribution — see the open data page.

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