And today, Williams was at work meeting with some of the bus operators who make up the BBA. With 18 of them on board for the National Bus Company, the ministry is trying to get it in writing. And while not everyone is in agreement with the concept for a consolidated national bus company, the ministry is moving forward and Williams explained that they will be testing the electric buses on the roads over the next six months.
Chester Williams, CEO, Ministry of Transport
“As you know that we are pushing this national bus company and there have been many discussions in the media in terms of where are we, what is the sentiment of the current bus operators, are they cooperating, are they not cooperating. We have seen a number of press releases coming out of the BBA and so what we’re having today is that a number of the bus operators are here currently meeting with us and they’re signing on to giving their approval of the national bus company so by the end of the day today we should have 18 out of 32 bus companies signed on already. Again, we recently had a bid through UNDP where they had put out to bid for a company to undertake the 3 electric buses in the country. I guess you would have seen them in Belize City by Caribbean Motors, they’re usually parked there and so those three electric buses will soon be on our highways. I think one will be used for the south, one for the west, and one for the north so it’s a test of our electric buses on the highways to see how they stand up to our road terrain and other things so I think it’s going to be for 6 months that one of the local companies will be using the 3 buses, operating under their road service permit in the 3 areas of this country as I have said before. And once that is done then we will be able to look at that to see if that suits what we want to use for the national bus company. When the 6 months period is up, the trial stage, the buses will be handed over to the government of Belize so those may be our first fleet of vehicles for the national bus company.”
