Efficient and functional public transport systems are essential to mitigate the effects of congestion and pollution in the world cities. Many cities in Latin America feature public transport systems operated by small private companies loosely regulated by transit authorities with limited technical resources. In this context, both operators and regulators neglect user information as an important component of the system. This paper describes the experience of developing an information system for the public transport system in Ibague, an emerging city of 650 000 inhabitants in central Colombia. The system relies on crowed-sourced, user-generated data which was gathered, consolidated and structured by our research group using innovative and affordable methods that are easily applicable to other systems.