Orito River-Port & Fluvial Mobility Diagnosis, Putumayo (IDB/TTA)
Cities Forum contributed expertise to an Inter-American Development Bank technical-cooperation assignment, delivered through the consulting firm TTA, to diagnose transport and river mobility in Orito, in Colombia's Putumayo department on the edge of the Amazon.
Year: 2024–2025 | Client: Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) via TTA | Country: Colombia (Orito & Puerto Asís, Putumayo — Amazon region)
Cities Forum contributed expertise to an Inter-American Development Bank technical-cooperation assignment, delivered through the consulting firm TTA, to diagnose transport and river mobility in Orito, in Colombia's Putumayo department on the edge of the Amazon. In a riverine region where boats, not roads, are the backbone of everyday movement, the work centred on the town's river port (the "puerto de barcas") and its fluvial connectivity, a context far removed from conventional urban mobility and demanding solutions adapted to Amazonian realities.
Our approach
The core output was a detailed transport diagnosis of Orito, examining the river port and boat-landing infrastructure, the fluvial connectivity of the town, and the potential for electric and electro-fluvial mobility. The analysis was built on a substantial evidence base, Colombia's national river-transport plan, the Amazonian intermodal sustainable-transport plan (PATIS), the national intermodal transport plan, a Puerto Asís intermodal-transfer feasibility study, and reports on the potential of fluvial electromobility in Colombia, combined with local baseline data, a river inventory, an inventory of the port's challenges, and study-area mapping. The scope was subsequently extended to nearby Puerto Asís, with additional work on governance, road-network context, climate considerations and the pros and cons of fluvial electromobility.
What we delivered
Cities Forum's contribution combined this technical and documentary rigour with clear communication, developing custom infographics and drawing on real field photography of the Putumayo river port, its lancheros, chalupas, planchones and river craft, to ground the diagnosis in the lived reality of the place.
Impact
The assignment gave the IDB and local stakeholders a solid diagnostic foundation for planning sustainable, potentially electrified river mobility in a remote Amazonian territory, where river transport is central to connectivity, livelihoods and inclusion. It broadened Cities Forum's expertise into fluvial and intermodal transport in fragile, hard-to-reach regions, demonstrating that the firm's rigorous, evidence-led approach applies as readily to an Amazon river port as to a European city street.
