La Paz
- Country
- Bolivia
- Population
- 800K
- Projects
- 3
- First project
- 2014
- Track record
- 1 scaled back
- Best evidence
- Official
- Last verified
- 27 August 2026
La Paz is a city where the data layer keeps working and the service underneath it does not always. Its cable-car network runs above a canyon few roads cross and has kept running through blockades and fuel shortages; its municipal buses got real-time tracking in the same year a diesel crisis cut them to half service; and its flood-warning unit issues graded alerts for four river basins that inform crews without actuating anything.
The atlas documents 3 projects in La Paz: 1 scaled back, 2 still running without a verdict. Every entry carries an evidence grade — the strongest here is official (3 entries) — and links its sources.
How La Paz got smart
Two services started in the same year and diverged. Mi Teleférico, now ten colour-coded lines and the world's longest urban cable car network, links La Paz and El Alto across terrain roads handle badly — and it has repeatedly kept moving while road transport was paralysed by blockades and fuel shortages, even adding cabins on three lines in May 2026.
The municipal bus service began on 24 February 2014 with vehicles built for the city's slopes, growing to 213 of them, of which about 135 run on a normal day. On 30 July 2026 the mayor's office launched an app putting each bus's live position in riders' hands — and it arrived in the service's hardest year, with the national diesel shortage cutting operations to half and the budget down roughly 60% since 2021. The mayor concedes the service at its best carried 1.6% of the city's passengers.
The third layer watches the water. The municipal early-warning unit keeps the Choqueyapu, Orkojahuira, Irpavi and Achumani basins under permanent watch and pushes graded alerts through its own app, going to maximum alert on a forecast alone in March 2024. It is warning-only by design: closures and evacuations remain human decisions.
Timeline (2014–2014)
All 3 projects in La Paz
✔ Every published entry is checked against the public sources it cites before publication.
Outcome: 2 ongoing · 1 scaled back — Evidence: 3 official
How the pieces connect
Editorial links between La Paz's own entries — the city as a system, not a list.
- La Paz Early Warning System (SAT) & Alertas La Paz App ↔ PumaKatari Municipal Buses & LaPazBUS Real-Time GPS AppThe warning unit watches the basins the bus routes cross; both are run by the same municipality.
- Mi Teleférico Cable Car Network & Contactless Ticketing ↔ PumaKatari Municipal Buses & LaPazBUS Real-Time GPS AppThe city's two public transport arms: a cable network above the canyon, municipal buses on the slopes below.
What's next
Plans and announced trajectories — not yet documented results.
The pattern is worth stating plainly, because two of the three entries say it themselves. A tracking app cannot fix fuel supply, and an alert cannot hold a riverbank: when a hailstorm hit in March 2026 under an orange alert, the Koani still overflowed and a three-storey dwelling collapsed. What La Paz has genuinely built is the rare transport system that does not depend on the road network — and that, not the software, is why it keeps running.
Deeper reads
Where La Paz appears in the atlas's own analysis.
Closest comparisons
One city the atlas reads next to La Paz — the reason first, then the entries it rests on. Chosen by hand from the La Paz threads below, not counted out of them.
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🇨🇴 Medellín
Medellín proved the cable car could be transit and La Paz built a whole network on the proof — and both then instrumented an Andean municipal bus fleet by GPS rather than by promise.
Show 7 further city threadsShow fewer
Every editorial link from La Paz's entries into another city, strongest first. Each one is a statement about two projects, not about two cities — the three above are the ones the atlas is willing to make at city level.
- 🇰🇷 Busan: Busan Urban Flood Warning System (Busan Safety ON) Warning-only flood systems on the same ladder rung; Busan flagged its own data limits, La Paz's Koani overflowed under an orange alert.
- 🇨🇴 Medellín: Metrocable & Social Urbanism Medellín proved the cable car as transit in 2004; La Paz built the idea into the world's longest urban cable-car network, over a canyon.
- 🇨🇴 Bogotá: TransMiCable: the cable car that got a control group Latin America's cable-car family: Bogotá's TransMiCable published an honest null result, while La Paz keeps extending its ten lines.
- 🇲🇬 Antananarivo: Antananarivo Urban Cable Car (Orange Line) Cable-car contrast: La Paz's network is core transit; Antananarivo's Orange Line has stood idle since the September 2025 protests.
- 🇨🇴 Medellín: Metroplús Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) & Fleet Telematics Andean municipal bus fleets passing the scope test via GPS telemetry; La Paz's app launched mid-diesel-crisis, Medellín's rode a concession.
- 🇧🇷 Brasília: Caesb Water Network Pressure Telemetry Two Latin American capitals put live bus GPS into a public app a year apart — Brasília July 2025, La Paz July 2026.
- 🇭🇳 Tegucigalpa: Río Choluteca Real-Time Flood Sensor Network (Sistema de Alerta Temprana) Two capital-run river warning networks that stop at the alert: sensors and apps inform, but closures and evacuation stay human decisions.
Official strategy and sources
📎 Cite this city
1001 Smart Cities (2026). “Smart-city projects in La Paz, Bolivia.” The Smart City Atlas. https://1001smartcities.org/cities/la-paz/ (last verified 2026-08-27). Data: CC BY 4.0.
The underlying data is free to reuse with attribution — see the open data page.