The new ADO terminal at Tulum's archaeological zone carries a 37 million peso investment and a September target for its first departures, with service planned around the clock.
Gerardo Jerez Ovando, general manager for Mobility ADO's Caribbean region, put numbers to the project during a walkthrough of the construction site alongside Mayor Diego Castañón Trejo this week. The work is well advanced, he said, on pace to wrap in late August so buses can start rolling during September.
The location is the point. ADO has run its Tulum operation from a downtown station for years, while the archaeological zone, a few kilometers up the federal highway, made do with roadside stops. The new build plants a second full terminal at the gateway to the municipality's most visited attraction, with direct connections promised to Tulum International Airport, Cancún, and central Mexico.
For visitors, that means arriving at the ruins instead of a highway shoulder. For residents, it adds a boarding point on the north side of town that never closes.
A new ADO terminal where the crowds already are
The company calls the project Terminal ADO Zona Arqueológica, and Jerez Ovando said it will operate 24 hours a day. That schedule fits the traffic a station beside the ruins can expect: overnight long-haul arrivals from central Mexico and early departures for morning flights.
Reaching the site by bus today usually means a drop at the shoulder of Highway 307 or a transfer through the downtown terminal, then a colectivo or taxi for the last stretch. A staffed terminal with its own address collapses that chain into a single stop.
The airport it aims to feed opened in December 2023 southwest of the city, designed for about 5.5 million passengers a year, and ground links between it and town have been filling in ever since. A scheduled bus line anchored at the archaeological zone adds a fixed option on the corridor most visitors already travel.
300 jobs, filled from Tulum and Quintana Roo
The construction budget stands at 37 million pesos, Jerez Ovando said, and the project supports 50 direct jobs plus another 250 indirect ones, held by people from Tulum and elsewhere in Quintana Roo. The company did not break down how many of those positions continue once the building work ends.
'We have to keep generating economic activity,' says the mayor
Castañón toured the site and framed the build as proof that private companies keep betting on the municipality. Consolidating mobility infrastructure, he added, strengthens tourism and improves services for the people who live here.
"We have to keep generating economic activity and infrastructure to provide the service our residents and tourists deserve," the mayor said during the visit.
City hall's reading of the project leans on one word: confidence. The municipal announcement cast the terminal as evidence that the business sector still sees room to grow in Tulum's economy.
Late August finish, then September departures
The sequence Jerez Ovando laid out has two markers. Construction wraps at the end of August, and operations begin sometime in September.
What riders can plan around is still to come. ADO has not announced an exact opening date, and the first route map, with its frequencies and fares, has yet to be published. Nor has the company said whether schedules at the downtown station change once the second terminal opens. Until that timetable appears, the practical question stays open: which buses leave the ruins first, and at what hour.
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