Since 2004 every September 24th, “Colectivero Day” in Argentina has been commemorated. The date is inspired by the events that occurred in 1928 when a group of taxi drivers devised a new way to transport passengers in the City of Buenos Aires, that idea was then taken as “the first collective trip”. But to know the details of this ephemeris, we have to dely a little into history and go back to the 20s. When in our country there was a major economic crisis, and taxi drivers did not fall behind, who came with the business down with the implementation of the buses or the tram. Then a group of drivers came together to think of a strategy that would help them cope with the crisis and earn more income.
That’s why they reached a consensus and decided to take shared trips, taking more than one person in their vehicle making two or three stops, on the same trip and splitting the fare.
The first passengers departed from Avenida Rivadavia and Lacarra to Primera Junta, with an intermediate stop in Flores. In principle, they called them Taxi-Collective or Taxi Obús, then Auto Colectivo until it became Collective.
In the beginning, the limit for each vehicle was five passengers. However, the legal picture was fuzzy. But since the service was well accepted by the Buenos Aires population, entrepreneurs began to use all available space (not only internal car seats, but also “transpoints”). Until in 1932 the Municipality of the City of Buenos Aires enabled dozens of lines, it needed the measures that the cars had to have and the capacity, which at the time was ten seats.
Over time and given its success the physiognomy of the collectives, it was modified to look more like buses, the main competitors of taxi drivers, to this day. In 2004 when they decided to give the bus drivers a day, they chose the date of what was considered to be the first bus ride, which paradoxically was in a taxi.
