Could electric buses change Guatemala's public transport?

A US$40,000 loan by the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (Cabei) to study electric bus transport for Guatemala City could be the start of creating an integrated transport system for the country, an expert told BNamericas.

Cabei will support technical studies focusing on the Transmetro system’s line No. 5. The studies will help determine the feasibility of adding electric buses to the fleet.

In a recent press release, Cabei’s executive president, Dante Mossi, said, “This project promoted by the municipality of Guatemala represents a great opportunity for the cities of the region to improve public transportation and connectivity, reduce the generation of greenhouse gases and improve the competitiveness of the bus fleet.”

Jean-Roch Lebeau, director of territorial development company Grupo Innovaterra in Guatemala City, has already worked on similar projects.

Lebeau told BNamericas that “a few years ago we worked on the strategy of urban development with low emissions. We created the national strategy that was financed by USAID. Among actions that were proposed at the national level was the introduction of the public transport system with this possibility of electric buses.”

The amount of cars on the road grew by 8.4% last year and half of the 4.11mn vehicles in the country circulate the central corridor covering Guatemala City, Sacatepéquez, Chimaltenango and El Progreso, according to tax authority SAT.

To solve traffic problems, a plan including light rail, metro, cable cars, bicycles and walking paths is needed, according to Lebeau. However, electric buses can help create a broader vision that reaches other localities.

“We are talking about billions [of dollars] of investment that need to be made in public transport. Both in infrastructure and we already know that no public transport system in the world works without having some subsidy,” said Lebeau.

Studies on line No. 5 would show if Guatemala City could attract the return of people that moved to satellite cities such as Mixco, Villa Nueva and Santa Catarina Pinula. The city’s north-south corridor concentrates roughly 70% of the jobs in the area.

Getting workers to return requires better housing and public transport. Financing such projects is difficult as national and municipal resources are fought over.

“We have many problems financing these types of projects for various reasons,” said Lebeau. “One of them is that we do not have an institutional framework for urban development, there is no ministry for urban development.”

In November 2020, Guatemala City awarded a 1.2bn-quetzal (US$153mn) contract to a consortium of Cablevía de Guatemala, Desarrollos Residenciales Victoria, Desarrollos Torinos and Doppelmayr Guatemala to build a 10-station cable-car system called Aerometro.

But the US$770mn Metroriel project to renovate railway tracks in the capital is still in the early studies phase and requires congressional approval. Guatemala has not executed a PPP project in a decade.

Last week finance minister Alvaro Ricci pushed for amendments to the PPP law and for restructuring infrastructure development agency Anadie to attract investments.

And a lack of central oversight has fractured regulation, with every municipality implementing its own building code. This makes it difficult to pursue projects that cover multiple municipalities. 

However, Lebeau is confident that a comprehensive urban development plan can resolve administrative issues and help create profitable public transport given the demand for employment in the capital.

“We’re starting to see different pieces coming together to make it possible and I hope that this accelerates,” said Lebeau.

That should happen “in the next two to three years, so we have a north in our planning that articulates different projects, initiatives, studies in one consolidated proposal shared by the state and the municipalities.”