Leitner, Doppelmayr indicate interest in Mexico City cable car line

Italy’s Leitner and Austria’s Doppelmayr have indicated they are interested in bidding in a tender for an estimated 1.8bn-peso (US$91.8mn) cable car line in Mexico City, a project beset by delays. 

Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum has built two lines during her and is now looking to add a third to the Mexican capital’s cable car system known as Cablebús. The 5km line No. 3 will connect the four sections of the Bosque de Chapultepec area.

In April, Sheinbaum said a tender for the project would be launched in May, following the completion of the project’s cost-benefit analysis that was awarded in December to BH&A Proyectos, Consultoría y Supervisión. But the process is still pending. 

Leitner, in a consortium with Alfa Proveedores y Contratistas, was the main EPC/EPCM contractor for line No. 2, which opened last August. 

It links the areas of Santa Catarina and Ermita across the capital's sprawling Iztapalapa district. An enormous undertaking, Guinness has declared it the longest urban cable car line in the world, at 10.6km.

For line No. 1, Doppelmayr México acted as the main contractor in a consortium with Gami Ingenieria e Instalaciones. 

The line, which opened last July, links the areas of Cuautepec and Indios Verdes, in the municipality of Gustavo A Madero in northern Mexico City.

Confirmed interest

Leitner had confirmed its intention to bid for the third line at the end of last year, when VP Martin Leitner told Forbes México the company will again link up with local firm Alfa Proveedores y Contratistas for the tender.

Leitner exports director Dominic Bosio reiterated the company’s interest in the project during the BNamericas 2022 infrastructure opportunities webinar in Mexico that was streamed in January. He also added that preliminary studies ahead of the tender were “very advanced.”

Mexico City hub

Although Doppelmayr has not publicly said it will participate in the contest, the firm announced Friday that it would make an initial investment of 10mn euros (US$10.7mn) to establish a repair, storage and training hub for the Latin American region. 

The center will be located in the Vallejo industrial zone of the Azcapotzalco district, Doppelmayr México CEO Konstantinos Panagiotou said during a press conference, adding that the company will announce more investments in the near future. 

"We hope that by the end of this year we can bring employees from Colombia, from Brazil, from other parts of the region," he said.