>>> I'm curious, do other larger cities where commercial is concentrated into one area not have a private mini-bus(es)?

It turns out, there are some private buses. Take for example, Santiago, Chile. It succeeded in terms of profits and customer satisfaction. The problem is they do not survive. There comes a time when they don't pay sufficient "political capital" and get taken over (nationalized) by local politicians.

The result of the private bus system nationalization by socialists is macabre, at least this the Santiago case. First, the newly minted public bus service went from $60M USD profits, to massive $600M in losses [1] overnight. That is a negative 10x return. And service declined as well. [1] But that in itself is not a new story.

Now, fast forward ~12 years. The system bleeds so much money that the govt is forced to increase bus fares. The increase in fares activates the biggest riots the country has seen in decades [2]

Out of the riots, one young protester rises to the top. He comes with ideas of a new constitution. He is a young socialist leader. A certain Gabriel Boric [3], who had ran and won for president of University of Chile Student Federation against the leader of the Communist Party of Chile [4]

So now we come full-circle: A working private bus service was replaced by socialist politicians into a public bus system that hemorrhaged 10x more money than it earned previously in actual profits. The public bus funding crisis and subsequent fare hikes led to massive riots, which were a direct on-ramp for a socialist to ascend to power as president of Chile. In short, successful private local bus enterprise was replaced with a socialist bus system, which then proceeded to implode. This implosion of a socialist idea led to the spread of even more socialism, but now at a national level.

This chain of events from beginning to end, only took 20 years.

[1] https://www.econtalk.org/munger-on-the-political-economy-of-...

[2] https://www.scmp.com/news/world/americas/article/3033688/cha...

[3] https://english.elpais.com/international/2024-03-12/gabriel-...

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabriel_boric#Role_in_the_Esta...