Electric Buses to Arrive in Belize This Year

Climate change has prompted the discussions on cutting down on greenhouse gas emissions and its overall impact on the planet’s health. Those discussions began in Belize in 2018 with the shift from fuel-operated public buses to electric buses. Leading the charge in the discussion is the United Nations Development Programme, which will gift a few buses to Belize to form part of the pilot project that’s underway. Those buses will arrive in country shortly and will be deployed along specific routes in collaboration with the Ministries of Transport and Public Utilities and Energy. On Wednesday, the relevant ministries and the United Nations Development Programme held a consultation exercise at the Biltmore Hotel with interested parties, including bus operators. The U.N.D.P.’s Deputy Resident Representative, Ian King explained that the buses will be tested along specific routes to gather data on how well they function and how feasible it would be to operate them in Belize.

Ian King

Ian King, Deputy Resident Rep, U.N.D.P, Belize

“Initially, there will be two running within Belize City, running a circuit within Belize City. And there will be three other buses running at Inter-city, most definitely going from Belize City to West, Belmopan and Benque. And the idea is, again, to stress test, to run those, to see how well they work, and so on. So there’ll be three buses. We expect the first buses for Belize City to be in Belize this year. Hopefully we have the intra-city buses this year as well. It could be this year, it could be early next year, but the whole process, the project has started. This is a part of improving the transport experience in the country is part of Belize’s strategy to address the reduction of its contribution to greenhouse gases and in the atmosphere.”