Technical article
Living in Lima Without a Car: What the Transport Authority Publishes
What does it cost to get around on public transport, and does it go where they would live?
Picture a couple named Helen and Marcus. Both are 63. At home they own two cars and drive every day. In Lima they would like to own none. Their first question is a plain one. What does it cost to get around on public transport, and does it go where they would live?
I went to the pages of Lima's transport authority, the Autoridad de Transporte Urbano para Lima y Callao (ATU), and to the regulator of the Line 1 metro, Ositrán. Several pages would not open for me: the ATU main site blocks automated readers, and its news pages returned errors. What I have comes from one ATU presentation to the Peruvian Congress, dated November 2025, and two Ositrán pages.
Fares in the ATU presentation
The presentation shows ranges, because fares vary by distance, by route and by card. The slide layout was hard to read, so I note where I matched a number to a service by its position on the slide.
| Service | Fare in PEN, as shown |
|---|---|
| Metro Line 1 | 0.75 to 1.50 (matched by position) |
| Metro Line 2, first stage | 1.40 adult fare |
| Metropolitano (bus rapid transit) | 1.75 to 3.50 (matched by position) |
| Red and Blue bus corridors | 1.00 to 2.35 |
| Purple bus corridor | 1.00 to 2.50 |
The slide says the corridor ranges include "direct and differentiated" fares. A first-stage Line 2 figure of PEN 1.40 is the one number on the page that was labelled with its service.
How many people ride
The same presentation gives daily passengers for three Metropolitano corridors: Blue 51,000, Red 169,000 and Purple 72,000. It also shows a total of 554,000 that does not match the sum of the three, which is 292,000 (my arithmetic). I do not know what the total covers, so I use only the three corridor figures. For Line 2, first stage, it gives 59,000 trips on a working day.
The Line 1 fare
The Ositrán page on Line 1 shows a "Tarifa social" in soles: adult PEN 1.50, and PEN 0.75 for a half fare (student or schoolchild). It adds: "El importe de la tarifa puede ser modificado por el Concedente." The page shows a last-modified date of 16 July 2026. This fits the 0.75 to 1.50 range in the ATU slide. It lists no fare for older people.
An ATU resolution of 13 April 2022 on the bus corridors lists fares "para adulto mayor" as one case where a reduced fare may apply. It says such fares are set by the grantor and gives no amount.
Who rides free on Line 1
The Ositrán guide lists those who do not pay: children under 6 with their ID, people with a severe disability who hold the CONADIS card, and police officers and firefighters. It does not mention a discount for older people. A new card on the self-service machines starts with a top-up of PEN 5. Large bags are restricted Monday to Saturday from 6 to 10 a.m. and 5 to 9 p.m.
What the sources do not show from an official page
- Whether people over 60 pay less, and by how much. No amount appears on the pages I read.
- The share of trips in Lima made by car, bus or on foot.
- Where each line runs in relation to the neighbourhoods retirees from abroad tend to look at.
- Rules for taxis and ride-hailing apps.
- Walking conditions and street data for individual districts.
You could…
- Look at the ATU route map and mark every line within a 15-minute walk of the districts you are thinking about.
- Ask the ATU, in writing, what the fare for older people is on each service.
- Spend two weeks in Lima without hiring a car and keep a note of every trip.
Which trips would you most want a car for?
Figures are estimates for planning, based on public data. Date read: 10 October 2026.
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