Pan-American Highway, Torreón, Coahuila. Source: FanHabbo, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0.
CIMNE’s Innovation Unit in Transport CENIT is contributing to a project commissioned by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) to strengthen the understanding of logistics performance along the Pacific Corridor. The assignment, titled “Consultancy for the collection, compilation and analysis of logistics times and costs in the Pacific Corridor,” covers Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panamá.
The Pacific Corridor is a key freight route linking Mexico to Panamá. However, variability in transit times and costs, particularly at border crossings, continues to affect the reliability and efficiency of logistics operations across the region.
The project aims to develop a consistent and comparable evidence base on how goods move along the corridor, with a focus on time and cost indicators. This work will support the design and implementation of the Agile Logistics Corridor (CAL) model, an initiative focused on improving coordination, reducing delays, and strengthening trade facilitation mechanisms across countries.
CENIT’s contribution focuses on the design and implementation of the methodological framework underpinning the study. This includes defining key performance indicators, establishing data collection protocols, and ensuring consistency across different national contexts. The approach is structured to enable cross-country comparison while allowing for future replication.
A significant component of the project is the fieldwork campaign along selected border crossings. Field teams are collecting primary data through vehicle observations, driver surveys and video-based vehicle registration at strategic points before, within and after border areas. Automatic license plate recognition is being used to match vehicles across observation points and assign precise timestamps, allowing the team to estimate queueing times, border crossing times and delays in adjacent urban sections. This provides a more detailed picture of how freight vehicles actually move through the corridor and where time is lost in practice.
The project also includes statistical analysis of logistics performance, focusing on identifying bottlenecks and quantifying factors that contribute to delays and increased costs. This involves examining variations in transit times, waiting periods at border crossings, and operational inefficiencies across different segments of the corridor.
CENIT is working in collaboration with SLOTT Consulting, combining expertise in transport systems analysis and logistics operations.
According to project manager Genís Majoral: “Reliable and comparable data is essential to understand how the corridor operates in practice. This project provides a structured basis to identify where time and costs are generated, and to support more coordinated actions across countries.”
The project will produce technical reports and presentations for the IDB and regional stakeholders. These deliverables will provide evidence-based recommendations to support the implementation of the CAL model, with a focus on improving operational efficiency and reducing variability in logistics performance.
Stefano Braga, CENIT’s transport researcher on the project, commented: “Reducing uncertainty in freight transport is just as important as reducing travel times. By identifying the sources of variability along the corridor, the project can help support more predictable and resilient supply chains.”
By structuring and analysing data at a regional scale, the project aims to provide a clearer picture of how the Pacific Corridor functions in practice. The results are expected to support more informed decision-making and contribute to ongoing efforts to enhance trade efficiency in Central America.
