The Mendoza trolleybus system () formed part of the public transport network in Mendoza, the capital city of Mendoza Province, Argentina. It is owned by the provincial government.
Opened in 1958, the system expanded to three routes by 1961 and remained relatively static in size and configuration until 1989, when a fourth route opened. Additional routes opened in 2004 and 2005, bringing the system to its maximum extent of six routes, which linked the city center with some of its metropolitan suburbs. However, one of the original routes (Villanueva) was suspended from 2005 to 2011, and consequently no more than five routes were operating concurrently during that period.
In the 2010s, the provincial government entity that had always operated the system, the Empresa Provincial de Transportes de Mendoza (EPTM), began to experience increasingly worsening financial problems, due in large part to difficulties in keeping its fleet of approximately 30-year-old trolleybuses operating reliably. Construction projects around the city, including work on the new Metrotranvía Mendoza light rail system, also disrupted trolleybus service, and the actual number of trolleybuses in service declined considerably.
At the end of 2016, the provincial legislature voted to dissolve EPTM entirely and replace it with a new company, the Sociedad de Transporte de Mendoza (STM), and this change was put into effect on 1 January 2017. All remaining trolleybus service was suspended on 4 May 2017. A plan to make the suspension a permanent closure gave way to one calling for retention of trolleybus service on one route, the Parque route (the system's very first route, dating to 1958), with the other five routes permanently closed. The suspension lasted 16 months, and trolleybus service resumed on the Parque route in January 2019. Service was discontinued again in February 2021.
History
20th century
The system traces its origins to law number 825, enacted in 1958 with the goal of making a trolleybus system one of the main means of transport in the city and the suburbs surrounding it.
On 14 February 1958, at the intersection of 9 de Julio and Necochea streets, Dr. Isidoro Bousquet formally opened Mendoza's trolleybus system. The first line to be put into service by the system's operator, the Empresa Provincial de Transportes de Mendoza (EPTM), was the "Parque" line, also known as line number 1. To this day, that line still follows the same route (9 de Julio, Colón, Arístides Villanueva, Boulogne Sur Mer, Jorge A. Calle, Perú and Godoy Cruz streets). The system's second line, "Villa Nueva", opened in February 1959 and the third, "Dorrego", in March 1961. Publicly, the routes were designated by names only, not numbers, and this practice continued until the mid-1990s and was revived in the 2010s.
21st century
The Mendoza trolleybus system was still expanding significantly as recently as the mid-2000s, with the construction of a long new line connecting Godoy Cruz with Las Heras, and of a shorter line connecting the bus terminal with the National University of Cuyo. These opened in April 2004 and October 2005, respectively. The Las Heras – Godoy Cruz line is long. More recently, in November 2013, an extension of the Dorrego route was opened.
In 2009–10, the entire trolleybus fleet was replaced with Flyer trolleybuses acquired secondhand from the Vancouver trolleybus system, in Canada. Although already 26 years old at the time, these vehicles were believed to be in better condition than EPTM's then-existing fleet of secondhand German trolleybuses built in the 1970s. EPTM refurbished them before placing them in service. The number of serviceable trolleybuses in the fleet grew to 60 by 2010, and the scheduled peak vehicle requirement was 48. Service on the Villa Nueva (alternatively spelled Villanueva) route resumed in 2011, ending a six-year suspension attributed mainly to long delays in work to renew or refurbish its deteriorated overhead wiring.
However, by early 2011 EPTM was having trouble keeping the ex-Vancouver vehicles running reliably. By the end of 2011, the situation had already worsened considerably, with only 40 of the 60–62 vehicles being listed as serviceable but only around 25 typically available for service after subtracting nominally serviceable vehicles that were awaiting correction of minor defects. During several periods in the early 2010s, one or two routes (from among three affected routes) were temporarily operated by motorbuses for extended periods due to the need for detours caused by construction of the Metrotranvía Mendoza light rail system.