The Quito trolleybus system is a bus rapid transit line located in

Quito Quito (; ), officially San Francisco de Quito, is the capital city, capital and second-largest city of Ecuador, with an estimated population of 2.8 million in its metropolitan area. It is also the capital of the province of Pichincha Province, P ...

Ecuador Ecuador, officially the Republic of Ecuador, is a country in northwestern South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and the Pacific Ocean on the west. It also includes the Galápagos Province which contain ...

, which opened in 1995 and by 2002 was carrying approximately 220,000 passengers per day.Webb, Mary (ed.) (2003), ''Jane's Urban Transport Systems 2003-2004'', (UK): Jane's Information Group. . It is managed by an agency of the municipality known as Empresa Metropolitana de Servicios y Administración del Transporte (EMSAT) and is operated by Compañía Trolebús Quito, S.A. The service is named (informally) ''El Trole'', Spanish for "The Trolley", meaning

trolleybus A trolleybus (also known as trolley bus, trolley coach, trackless trolley, trackless tramin the 1910s and 1920sJoyce, J.; King, J. S.; and Newman, A. G. (1986). ''British Trolleybus Systems'', pp. 9, 12. London: Ian Allan Publishing. .or troll ...

; this name is shown on signage at stops, and is used in publicity and marketing. Before being a subsystem of a larger bus rapid transit system of Quito known as MetrobusQ, ''El Trole'' was itself a whole system. Its formal name is Corredor Trole or; simply ''Trole'', currently.

The route

The trolleybus system is composed of a single line that runs, with a few exceptions, through the part of Ecuador Highway 35 (E 35) that is within Quito. The three segments of E 35 inside Quito are Avenida Diez de Agosto (northern Quito), Calle Guayaquil (center of Quito) and Avenida Pedro Vicente Maldonado (south of Quito). Seven different passenger services, or ''circuitos'', are operated along the trolleybus route, differing in their terminus locations but overlapping one another. The initial line opened in three stages between 17 December 1995 and 21 April 1996,Morrison, Allen. "Railless Rapid Transit in Ecuador". ''Trolleybus Magazine'' No. 208 (July–August 1996), pp. 86–89. National Trolleybus Assn. (UK). . and connected the ''La "Y"'' district, in northern Quito and near Mariscal Sucre International Airport, to the El Recreo shopping mall (Centro Comercial El Recreo), in southern Quito, via the city center. On 30 April 2000, the line was extended south by to Morán Valverde. On 19 December 2008, it was extended farther south and east, by , to Quitumbe, where it terminates at a large new intercity-bus station.''Trolleybus Magazine'' (UK) No. 284, March–April 2009, p. 37. This latest extension brought the length of the full line to . Between the Machángara River and the Villa Flora stop, the line originally followed separate streets in opposite directions: southbound along Avenida Cardenal Carlos Maria de la Torre and northbound along Avenida Maldonado, but the section along Cardenal de la Torre was closed in 2003, and the route thereafter has followed Avenida Maldonado in both directions along that section.

Operation

Service is provided by a fleet of 113 articulated

es, built by Hispano Carrocera and

Mercedes-Benz Mercedes-Benz (), commonly referred to simply as Mercedes and occasionally as Benz, is a German automotive brand that was founded in 1926. Mercedes-Benz AG (a subsidiary of the Mercedes-Benz Group, established in 2019) is based in Stuttgart, ...

, with electrical equipment by Kiepe Elektrik and

AEG The initials AEG are used for or may refer to: Common meanings * AEG (German company) ; AEG) was a German producer of electrical equipment. It was established in 1883 by Emil Rathenau as the ''Deutsche Edison-Gesellschaft für angewandte El ...

Adtranz Adtranz was a multi-national rail transportation equipment manufacturer with facilities concentrated in Europe and the US. The company, legally known as ABB Daimler-Benz Transportation, was created in 1996 as a joint venture between ABB and Daim ...

. For the first phase, 54 vehicles were delivered in 1995–96. Another 59 very similar vehicles were delivered in 1999–2000 for the system's expansion. The line operates in dedicated trolleybus-only lanes over almost its entire length, and the trolleybuses are given traffic-signal priority at most intersections. Large terminals, called ''Estaciones'', are located at the line's two original termini, Estación Norte La "Y" and Estación Sur El Recreo, and also at Morán Valverde and Quitumbe. In between these large terminals are many smaller stations, known as ''paradas'' (or "stops"), spaced about 550 meters apart, on average. In addition to the traffic separation and signal priority, other features of ''El Trole'' intended to facilitate fast service—and making the operation similar to many

light rail Light rail (or light rail transit, abbreviated to LRT) is a form of passenger urban rail transit that uses rolling stock derived from tram technology National Conference of the Transportation Research Board while also having some features from ...

lines—include the arrangements at stops: * All fare collection takes place off of the vehicles, and the boarding area is a " paid area", to which passengers are given access (via turnstiles) only upon paying (to a

ticket machine A ticket machine, also known as a ticket vending machine (TVM), is a vending machine that produces paper or electronic tickets, or recharges a stored-value card or smart card or the user's mobile wallet, typically on a smartphone. For instance, ...

or agent) or showing a prepaid fare instrument such as a monthly pass. This allows boarding and alighting to take place simultaneously at all three doorways of each vehicle. * All stops have high-level boarding platforms that are vertically aligned with the floors of the trolleybuses, allowing level, step-free boarding. The vehicles are equipped at each doorway with bridge plates that fold down at stops, to bridge the gap between the vehicle and the platform. The scheduled service frequency is very high at most times, over most of the line, with the headways/intervals being as short as 60 seconds during peak periods. All four of the major ''Estaciones'' (transfer terminals) are served by several suburban

bus A bus (contracted from omnibus, with variants multibus, motorbus, autobus, etc.) is a motor vehicle that carries significantly more passengers than an average car or van, but fewer than the average rail transport. It is most commonly used ...

routes, "feeding" the trolleybus line, and transfers made there are free. The original operator of ''El Trole'' was a department of the municipal government known as Unidad Operadora del Sistema Trolebús (UOST), but around March 2008 operation was transferred to Compañía Trolebús Quito S.A., a newly formed private company that is believed to be still municipally owned. On 31 March 2025, a new fleet of 60 Yutong trolleybuses entered service, partially replacing the older Mercedes trolleybuses.

Stop locations

These are the stations and stops of the trolleybus line and the street intersections where they are located: Avenida Diez de Agosto: *Estación Norte - La "Y": Av. 10 de Agosto y Cofanes *Parada La "Y": Av. 10 de Agosto y Pereira *Parada Estadio (

Estadio Olímpico Atahualpa Estadio Olímpico Atahualpa () is a multi-purpose stadium in Quito, Ecuador. It is currently used primarily for football matches and has a capacity of 35,258. Overview Built in 1951, it sits at the intersection of the Avenida 6 de Diciembre an ...

): Avs. 10 de Agosto y Naciones Unidas *Parada La Carolina: Avs. 10 de Agosto y República *Parada Florón: Av. 10 de Agosto y Rumipamba *Parada Mariana de Jesús: Avs. 10 de Agosto y Mariana de Jesús *Parada Cuero y Caicedo: Av. 10 de Agosto y Cuero y Caicedo *Parada Colón: Avs. 10 de Agosto y Colón *Parada Santa Clara: Av. 10 de Agosto y Veintimilla *Parada Mariscal: Av. 10 de Agosto y Jorge Washington *Parada Ejido: Av. 10 de Agosto y Bogotá *Parada La Alameda: Av. 10 de Agosto y Ante *Parada Banco Central ( Banco Central del Ecuador): Av. 10 de Agosto y Caldas (southbound only) *Parada San Blas (northbound only): Calle Montúfar y Guayaquil Within the ''Centro Histórico'': *Parada Plaza del Teatro: southbound stop at Guayaquil y Manabí, northbound stop at Montúfar y Manabí *Parada Plaza Grande: Guayaquil y Espejo (southbound only) *Parada Santo Domingo: Guayaquil y Rocafuerte Avenida Maldonado: *Parada Cumandá: Avs. Maldonado y 24 de Mayo *Parada Recoleta: Av. Maldonado y la Exposición *Parada Jefferson Pérez: Av. Maldonado y El Sena (at the Machángara River crossing) (southbound only) *Parada Colina: Av. Maldonado y Alpahausi (northbound only) *Parada Chimbacalle: Av. Maldonado near the terminal station of the Guayaquil & Quito Railway *Parada Villa Flora: Av. Maldonado y Ernesto Terán *Estación Sur El Recreo: Av. Maldonado y Rivas Along the route extensions opened in 2000 and 2008, mostly along Av. Hugo Ortiz, Av. Quitumbe Ñan and Av. Cóndor Ñan: *Parada Calzado *Parada España *Parada Quito Sur *Parada Internacional *Parada Ajaví *Parada Solanda *Parada Mercado Mayorista *Parada Quimiag *Parada Registro Civil *Estación Morán Valverde *Parada Amaru Ñan *Parada Cóndor Ñan *Estación Quitumbe

References

External links

{{Commons category, Quito Trole
"The Trolleybuses of Quito"
(web page with history, map and 62 photos).
Official website
(Spanish) Public transport in Ecuador Transport in Quito