2 Buses Approved for e-Mobility Pilot Project in Belize City

Today, the Belize City Council announced that staying true to its commitment towards low carbon transportation, the council will be acquiring two electric buses. The proposed e-mobility pilot project is being done in partnership with the United Nations Development Programme, the Ministry of Public Utilities, Energy, Logistics and e-Government and the Ministry of Transport with support from the European Union. The buses are valued at three hundred thousand dollars each and are being sourced from China through the Build Your Dreams Company. The buses are expected to arrive in November and e-Transit Start-up Coordinator Neil Hall breaks down the pilot project. 

Neil Hall

Neil Hall, E-Transit Start-up Coordinator, Belize City Council

“We’ll be looking at the integration of electric buses into Belize municipal public transit system and we’ll be looking at ways that this will improve the transit system here in Belize, ranging from everything from the fact that we are starting to get newer buses into the fleets that are being used, to being less pollutant – less noise, less greenhouse gases, less carbon pollution in the year. The mayor has gone to several locations where we has looked at e-transit, electric transportation, but he primarily went to Barbados where the case study was being the introduction of their electric buses into their system. The UNDP has finally released that we are now formally getting the buses. We are getting two BYD buses. These are coming from China; they will be able to traverse the city on the route that we have planned for it, which will take from north side to south side, south side to north side. It’s going to be one loop around the city. These buses go approximately a hundred and sixty-one mile on a single charge and the charge would be two hundred and six kilowatt-hours. So when that breaks down it comes to less than a hundred dollars for a charge, so we are looking at significant cost savings.”