The "hub and spoke" model –successful in the experience of US airlines, after the deregulation of passenger transport in that country– will have a Buenos Aires application. The surprise is that the initiative does not come from a private company, but from the government. And the most innovative is the item that will lead the change: the daily collection of recyclable waste.
With the support of companies such as TBA, the State is promoting the creation of collection centers close to the railways so that the cartoneros can contact the trucks of the resellers. The objective: to avoid the enormous risks of transporting tons of paper in passenger transport. The immediate benefit: allowing collectors to return home by train.
At the end of the 1970s, the United States aeronautical industry was deregulated to promote free competition and allow the entry of new “players” (players). This change in the competitive environment prompted companies to redefine their practices in order to gain efficiency, reduce costs and transfer these savings to prices.
Profitability was seriously threatened. All the areas and processes of the value chain were reached by this reengineering, which sought to reverse a doubly worrying scenario: on the one hand, the persistent trend of increasing labor and operating costs (especially fuels and facilities); and on the other, the fall in prices.
In the process, the route system underwent a drastic change: from point-to-point it moved to the “hub and spoke” that allowed the main airlines to concentrate their routes at major airports, linked with specific services. Smaller airports were connected to these nodes with shorter routes that allowed the use of smaller airplanes, operated by local lines or “commuters”.
The system (node and derivation, in Spanish) has two differential advantages: Limiting the number of nodes requires less investment in facilities, with the consequent cost savings; and by reducing the total distance traveled, variable transportation costs (fuel, insurance, maintenance, etc.) are lowered.
The application of a known system in a creative way contributed, along with other administrative decisions, to the survival of the industry.
Now, everything indicates that the city of Buenos Aires will witness an interesting reengineering in one of the most complete load systems that circulates through it.
Within the value chain of the "garbage business", the role of cartoneros is key. However, their fragmentation and precariousness paradoxically make them the weakest link: thousands of independent operators (cartoneros) who collect and transport tons of paper daily to sell them to a few operators (resellers).
In turn, many of these operators have trucks - of dubious legality and in terrible condition most of the time - to transport the cartoneros back and forth, with merchandise included in this case.
The lack of official statistics and the high informality of the sector do not allow us to know what proportion of cartoneros use the so-called "White Train", nor the volume of daily tons transported.
But this is the segment that will benefit from the implementation of the "hub and spoke" system. Even when its impact on the whole is not quantitative, any positive change will help alleviate the situation of this sector, precarious from the labor point of view and stigmatized from the social point of view beyond incipient and intermittent political initiatives, such as the official register of collectors and the opening of public recycling centers in the City of Buenos Aires and some suburbs.
The users of the White Train will become true “commuters”, and it is possible to expect an improvement in their overall effectiveness: a probable reduction in the hours used for collection, an improvement in their safety and more stable routes.
For the railway company, it will result in an economy of resources, since it will not use the passenger train for a different purpose for which it was conceived (less wear, less risk of dangerous cargo and, eventually, lower operating costs for the concessionaires).
If this modality is consolidated, the second stage could foresee that this cost saving is turned over to the benefit of the collectors. For example: that each node –which can be called a transfer station– houses alternative services, such as restrooms, food stalls, surveillance, etc. The benefits of this initiative would be enhanced by including the cartoneros in a comprehensive and formal manner.
It could even go further and not limit this strategy to the rail environment. By systematically surveying the routes, transfer stations could be established at points in the city of Buenos Aires for those cartoneros who do not use the White Train.
It is also necessary to analyze the regulatory framework of the activity, to promote the creation of cooperatives dedicated to the recycling of waste, including and fundamentally paper, an issue that broke into the public agenda due to the installation of paper mills on the coast of the Uruguay River.
These cooperatives –some of them already work in the San Martín district– would not only be in charge of collecting, but also of classifying and eventually processing the paper. Finished products would add value to the industry, decrease pollution and preserve the environment, through better use of raw materials.
An innovation in the route strategy of an industry will have an impact not only on its own logistics system, but on various competitive and economic aspects, and also on the environment.
With this type of initiative, public management would be finding in the management tools a creative solution to the daily problems that derive from the collection of waste by the cartoneros, offering them benefits that they surely do not expect.
The paradigm is: to improve palliatively and incrementally the precarious situation of the cartoneros, with initiatives such as those proposed by the government; or reconverting them into part of a socially useful, recognized and protected activity, such as waste recycling, which requires a comprehensive approach, a State policy framework and a look that goes beyond “neat welfare”.
