Santiago, 5 November 2025 – The British Chilean Chamber of Commerce (BritCham Chile), through its Technology, Innovation & Science Committee, convened a targeted forum titled “Intelligent Transport: Technology, Data and Sustainability for the Mobility of the Future”, assembling senior voices from government, academia and industry to deliberate the technological and data-driven pathways for sustainable urban mobility in Chile.

Moderated by Joanna Pérez, President of BritCham’s Technology, Innovation & Science Committee, the conversation featured a keynote with Alejandro Schmidt, Chief Technology Officer at Chile’s Ministry of Transport and Telecommunications. The session focused on the role of technology, data governance and public–private collaboration in delivering efficient, inclusive and low-emission transport systems.

Public–private collaboration as the cornerstone

Alejandro Schmidt outlined Chile’s evolution from the original Transantiago model to a people-centred, integrated public transport network. He emphasised the ministry’s priorities: modernising digital infrastructure, strengthening data governance, and opening platforms for industry and academia to co-create solutions that improve operational quality and passenger experience.

Schmidt highlighted Santiago’s leadership in vehicle electrification, noting the city’s large-scale electric bus deployment as a strategic asset that now requires coordinated energy planning and resilient systems to support further expansion.

Data, platforms and user experience

The panel examined practical uses of real-time telemetry, passenger counting and smart ticketing to inform operations and policy. The Ministry is advancing tenders and technology programmes for fleet management and smart ticketing, and developing a data governance framework to publish anonymised datasets that can serve as an innovation “sandbox” for start-ups and researchers.

Speakers stressed that data-driven services must be implemented with privacy safeguards and clear regulatory oversight, ensuring solutions are both effective and socially legitimate.

Tackling persistent challenges

Delegates confronted complex operational issues such as fare evasion, infrastructure resilience and interoperability across transport modes. Schmidt explained that upcoming contracts will incorporate passenger-counting technologies and enhanced telemetry requirements to improve planning, monitoring and enforcement—while noting that socio-technical measures remain essential to address evasion sustainably.

On sustainability, the Ministry reaffirmed its roadmap toward zero-emission fleet targets, underpinned by procurement policies and commitments to energy availability and storage solutions to secure long-term resilience.