4 days ago
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Three E-Buses, procured through the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) will be handed over to Westline Bus Company as part of an E-Mobility Pilot Project in the coming days. The contract was signed this afternoon at City Hall in Belize City and will now see Westline collecting data on the performance of electric buses on the highway as well as other factors, through to the end of this year. According to the Minister of Transportation, Dr. Louis Zabaneh, two buses will be designated for the western corridor with the third operating in the north.
Dr. Louis Zabaneh, Minister of Transportation: “Today we signed the agreement with Mr.Sergio Chuc the owner of Westline the company that won the bid for the pilot of the intercity EV buses. This is a project with the UNDP funded by the European Union and hoping to start the beginning of September and it will be a four month pilot project to the end of the year. Three buses will be used, two on the George Price Highway and one of the Philip Goldson Highway. The buses will be serving Benque to Belize City and Belize City to Corozal and back and the data will be collected on the amount of energy that is used in these various highways, certainly the overall efficiency of the buses all of this data will be important going forward to determine the suitability of the bus, the number of seats in the bus, the profitability of the bus etc. So all that data will be coming back and will be very useful to ua as we gradually transition to better forms of energy , electric energy buses for servicing our highways.”
Love News understands that the contract went through two tendering processes. In the first round, none of the applicants met the technical and financial requirements. In the second round, Westline was successful in its bid. Over the next twelve months, Westline will be responsible for the maintenance of the buses. The three E-buses were acquired through the European Union and the UN Development Program.
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