Hello e-Buses, is Belize Ready for the Transition?

A second electric bus was scheduled to arrive in country today, ahead of the start of a pilot project to introduce e-buses to the public transportation landscape in Belize.  Those buses will be used in Belize City and overseen by the Belize City Council under a project that is funded by the European Union.  According to eTransit Startup Coordinator, Neil Hall, the plan is to eventually expand the project by adding more buses to the fleet of e-buses that will be operating in other parts of the country.

Neil Hall

Neil Hall, e-Transit Startup Coordinator

“The funding is coming from the EU, the European Union.  The thought that Belize would be a dynamic location to have a pilot project such as this, moving us away from the buses that we currently have which are antiquated and spewing lots of carbon emissions and greenhouse gases and to try out and see if electric buses would actually be a good investment for the country of Belize. Belize City will be receiving two buses, nine meters in length, with capacities of about forty-seven passengers with standees and sitting passengers.  Yes, the laws must be amended.  While the larger buses will be twelve-meter buses, I’m not sure of their capacity because I’m not a part of the national program and have that information on hand. There are two buses and they will be charged at night and then during the day when they come out, obviously they will not be charging and roughly fully charged and be able to traverse the entire city without having to stop back at the charger and recharge.  However, again, being a pilot project, these things are dependent on weather, on how the driver drives, on several different factors, on congestion in the streets, for example, so there might be situations where it’s necessary for the buses to pull in and charge and in situations like that, we estimate that it would be out of service, quote on quote, for one lap, and then would just rejoin like nothing happened.”