Riviera Maya, Q.R. — State officials submitted the legal reform that will allow Quintana Roo to implement its MOBI system. If approved, part of that new mobility system will include the elimination of Transit officers.
State officials presented the initiative to State Congress in Chetumal Friday. The reform would allow the implementation of the Quintana Roo Welfare Mobility System, MOBI, a structural model to transform mass public transport under principles of coordination, strategic planning and financial discipline.
If approved, the MOBI (Sistema de Movilidad del Bienestar) system would provide improved pubic transportation systems with planned routes and greater coverage. It would also include use of technology such as an electronic payment system.
State Secretary Cristina Torres Gómez, presented the MOBI initiative Friday in the company of Rafael Hernández Kotasek, head of the Quintana Roo Institute of Mobility and Carlos Felipe Fuentes del Río, the state’s legal counsel.
The initiative updates the constitutional framework and the Mobility Law to align the state with the General Law on Mobility and Road Safety, incorporating the right to the city, the principle of non-regression in budgetary mobility and road safety.
Far from centralizing transportation, the reform strengthens municipalities and establishes clear rules of coordination through agreements that will allow, on a case-by-case and voluntary basis, the coordination of the planning, regulation, operation or concession of urban transportation without eliminating municipal powers or affecting the continuity of service.
The reform also comprehensively restructures the chapter regulating MOBI’s operation, establishing legal frameworks for integrated routes, control centers, electronic payments, terminals, digital systems, trusts and oversight and compliance mechanisms.
This transitions the system from a fragmented model to a planned, supervised, and financially sustainable one.
The Quintana Roo State Mobility Institute (Imoveqroo) points out that this initiative is a transformative project as it contains the rules to organize the state’s mobility with a long-term vision, legal certainty and accountability.
The MOBI initiative was first announced last year at which time Governor Mara Lezama announced that Quintana Roo will be the first state in the country to eliminate the figure of Transit Officers. She said their elimination will give way to Mobility Agents, professional, trained men and women who operate without direct contact to sanction and without the opportunity to negotiate.
“We cannot continue to bear the stigma of having the most corrupt traffic police in the country where 81% of people feel distrust and are tired of having to negotiate in the streets, tired of extortion and abuses that hurt the dignity of everyone,” the Governor stated.
