Mexico City runs three aerial cable car lines as regular public transport: Line 1 (9.2 km, Gustavo A. Madero, Doppelmayr) opened in July 2021, Line 2 (10.55 km, Iztapalapa, Leitner, awarded by direct contract) in August 2021, and Line 3 (5.42 km, across the four sections of Chapultepec park) in September 2024. They carried 47.7 million passengers in 2025, cost 7 pesos a ride and are paid for with the citywide Movilidad Integrada card, which also covers the Metro, Metrobus, Trolebus and Ecobici. Guinness certified Line 2 in 2021 as the world's longest urban cable car line. The hillside lines carry the riders: the Chapultepec line drew about 15,000 passengers a day in 2025 against a design capacity of 34,000.
A 2024 review by ITDP Mexico and the Inter-American Development Bank found Cablebus cut users' travel times by almost 45% and doubled, in some cases tripled, the jobs, health services, schools, shops and leisure destinations reachable within an hour's trip. The same study put operating cost at 8.73 pesos per passenger, below Metrobus (11.5), the Metro (15.3) and RTP buses (17.7).
🎓 Lesson
A cable car earns its place by geography, not by technology: the two lines climbing into hillside neighbourhoods carry riders in Metro-scale numbers, while the flat park line runs at under half its designed capacity.
Evidence📊 Independent
Scale🏙️ City-wide
CostLine 2 approx. MXN 3.17bn, Line 3 approx. MXN 2.6bn (Line 1 not confirmed)
FundingMexico City government budget; federal funds announced for Line 4
Sources
↗ ITDP Mexico / Inter-American Development Bank, 'Lecciones aprendidas en la implementacion del Cablebus' (research)Carries the impact figures at sentence level: 'El Cablebus logro disminuir los tiempos de traslado de las personas usuarias casi en un 45%' ('Cablebus cut users' travel times by almost 45%'), and 'Se duplicaron las oportunidades de empleo, salud, educacion, abastecimiento y esparcimiento' reachable in under an hour, tripled in some cases. Also estimates 18,569 t CO2e avoided from 2021 to December 2023. Method: literature review of 21 papers, 4 interviews in La Paz-El Alto, Bogota and Medellin, 9 interviews with Cablebus actors, with the city mobility ministry SEMOVI taking part. No control group, and the implementing agency was a participant, so this is a lessons-learned study rather than an arm's-length audit.
↗ Expansion Obras, 27 Sept 2024: cost per passenger (press, reporting the ITDP/IDB study)'el costo operativo del Cablebus (el promedio de las lineas 1 y 2) es de 8.73 pesos por pasajero' ('the operating cost of Cablebus, averaging lines 1 and 2, is 8.73 pesos per passenger'), against 11.5 for Metrobus, 15.3 for the Metro and 17.7 for RTP. Also: 'Las lineas 1 y 2 del Cablebus ... transportaron a mas de 40 millones de pasajeros en 2022.'
↗ El Universal, 2025 ridership by line (press, citing STE)STE figures for calendar 2025: Line 2 'movilizo a 22.9 millones de personas', Line 1 'traslado a 19.3 millones de pasajeros', Line 3 'fue utilizada por un total de 5.5 millones de personas' (22.9M / 19.3M / 5.5M, 47.7M combined). Strongest recent confirmation that all three lines are running.
↗ Expansion Obras, 5 Aug 2021: who built Line 2 and what it cost (press)'La empresa encargada de construir la segunda linea del medio de transporte es Leitner Spa' ('the company charged with building the second line is Leitner Spa'), contracted directly rather than by tender, with Alfa Proveedores and Leitner Ropeways Mexico; 'La Linea 2 tuvo una inversion de 3,168 millones de pesos'. The city government's own inauguration release gives 3,183 million pesos; the discrepancy is left standing rather than averaged.
↗ Corriente Alterna, UNAM: failures and queues on Line 2 (independent journalism)Counterweight to the operator account: 'la espera puede demorar hasta sesenta minutos en las horas pico' at Xalpa station ('the wait can take up to sixty minutes at peak hours'), nicknamed 'el Pantitlan del Cablebus'; the works ministry documented seven cabin stoppages between 8 August and 21 November 2021, mostly power supply and motor control faults; passengers were stranded aloft during the 7.1 earthquake of 7 September 2021. Leitner is contracted to spend 159.7 million pesos a year on maintenance in the first year of operation.
↗ Wikipedia (ES), Linea 1 and Linea 3 del Cablebus (encyclopedia, used for line geometry only)Line 1: 'El 11 de julio de 2021, fue inaugurado el troncal Indios Verdes — Cuautepec', 9.2 km, 6 stations, 377 cabins, 33 min 20 s end to end, fare MXN 7.00; first section opened 4 March 2021. The companion article on Line 3 gives 24 September 2024, 5.42 km, 6 stations, 180 cabins, Miguel Hidalgo and Alvaro Obregon, connecting the four sections of Chapultepec, with a five-station extension into the upper Alvaro Obregon neighbourhoods only proposed. Used as corroboration because the operator site ste.cdmx.gob.mx returns 503 to automated requests.
↗ La Jornada, 27 Aug 2021: Guinness record for Line 2 (press)Guinness World Records certified Line 2 (10.55 km) as the world's longest urban cable car line, August 2021; also reported by Forbes Mexico. Attributed to Guinness rather than asserted by the atlas, and the record is a moving target: the planned 15.2 km Line 5 is promoted as its successor.
↗ Infobae, 14 July 2026: annual two-week inspection shutdown (press)Each of the three lines closes for roughly two weeks a year for its annual inspection, staggered from 13 July, with free RTP replacement buses; El Universal reported riders saying they were not told in advance and paid more to travel. Line 3 also lost power in February 2026 and ran on a provisional service for four hours after an electrical fault on 28 May 2026 (La Jornada).
📎 Cite this project
1001 Smart Cities (2026). “Cablebus: Cable Cars as Ordinary Public Transit” — Mexico City, Mexico. The Smart City Atlas. https://1001smartcities.org/projects/mexico-city-cablebus/ (last verified 2026-07-26). Data: CC BY 4.0.
The underlying data is free to reuse with attribution — see the open data page.
