The auto-colectivo: A cultural history of the shared taxi in Buenos Aires (1928–33)

By the late 1920s, Buenos Aires already had a large tramway network, buses, an underground line, and railways. However, on 24 September 1928 a new form of public transport burst onto the scene: the auto-colectivo. Organised in small companies without municipal authorisation, taxi drivers began using their cars for public transport. Analysing technological transformations in the transportation sector from a cultural–historical perspective, this paper focuses on both the controversies sparked by the auto-colectivo, and the resignification of attributes of modern transport (speed, comfort, safety) prompted by this new form of public transportation. This service, which spontaneously emerged ‘from below’ as a result of the taxi drivers’ self-organisation, ‘socialised’ the use of the automobile and brought on a new (but short-lived) mobility experience. It is argued that the latter was an experience of passengering that played an important role in the success of this mode of transport, in the context of the rising of car culture and a bad reputation of trams and buses.