Leitner wins contracts worth €720 million in Mexico
by Enrico Netti
It is one of the most significant contracts in the history of the HTI Group. Leitner, the Group company that designs and manufactures cable cars, has been awarded, together with its Mexican partner Alfa Proveedores y Contratistas, which is responsible for the civil engineering works, a contract worth €720 million to supply four local public transport cable car lines in Mexico over the next four years. The total length of the cable car lines to be built is approximately 40 kilometres, and they will not be limited to the capital, Mexico City. The electromechanical supplies will all be made in Italy, whilst the project has been funded by the Mexican government, which has already invested in urban transport with other cable car systems in the recent past: lines totalling over 50 kilometres are already in operation, 25 of which were supplied by Leitner.
It will be 7.3 kilometres long, and an initial project is already under way in Morelia, the capital of the state of Michoacán. Two lines will be built here: the bus station will serve as the central hub, accessible from both the north-west corridor and the southern suburbs of the city. Commissioning will be phased and will begin next winter. In the municipality of Naucalpan de Juárez, in the Mexico City metropolitan area, ‘Mexicable Line 3’ is under construction. It will become a strategic system comprising three lines, ten stations, a total length of 9.8 kilometres and approximately 390 cabins. This will efficiently connect the western hillside areas, which have hitherto been difficult to reach, with the Cuatro Caminos metro station. The catchment area comprises around 700,000 people, and the line has a capacity of up to 40,000 passengers a day. Commuters will see their journey time halved from sixty to thirty minutes thanks to this light rail infrastructure.
“The example of Mexico impressively demonstrates the potential of urban cable cars, even in metropolitan areas,” said Martin Leitner, a member of the Leitner Board of Directors. What began in 2016 with the country’s first urban cable car is now a central component of public transport for millions of people. We are particularly proud that our systems not only provide mobility but also improve quality of life, drastically reduce journey times and connect previously hard-to-reach neighbourhoods more effectively and safely.”
Work is currently underway in the Mexican capital on two further major projects by the South Tyrolean company: these are the ‘Cablebús Line 4’ and the ‘Cablebús Line 6’. Both systems have been under construction since autumn 2025 and are among the most significant urban cableways in the world. “Cablebús Line 4” will be approximately 11.3 kilometres long with eight stations, making it one of the longest urban cableways in the world. It will connect hilly areas with complex topography in the south of the city with the central districts of the metropolis and will integrate directly into existing transport networks, including connections to bus and metro lines, as well as a direct link to the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México – Mexico’s largest public university and one of Latin America’s most important educational institutions. The journey time between the termini will be approximately 40–45 minutes, and passenger demand is expected to be around 65,000 passengers per day.
The ‘Cablebús Line 6’, on the other hand, will be approximately 12.7 kilometres long and will connect the districts of Milpa Alta, Xochimilco and Tláhuac, integrating areas that have hitherto been difficult to access – some of which are rural – into the Mexican capital’s urban transport network. Seven stations will offer a direct connection to metro line 12. Here too, the estimated journey time is around 40–45 minutes. With these projects, the total length of the systems built and under construction by Leitner in Mexico increases significantly. The combination of around 25 kilometres of existing infrastructure and the new projects, adding a further 40 kilometres, highlights the South Tyrolean company’s dynamic growth in the Latinmarket, where the third cable car line in Manizales, Colombia, was recently inaugurated, and the growing importance of urban cable cars as a sustainable solution to complex transport needs.
