President Luis Abinader has appointed former emergency management chief Juan Manuel Méndez García as the executive director of the Dominican Republic's land transit agency.
Abinader named Méndez to head the National Institute of Transit and Land Transportation (Intrant) under Decree 551-26, replacing Milton Morrison, who submitted his resignation.
Méndez takes charge of the agency after spending 21 years linked to the leadership of the Emergency Operations Center (COE), shifting his focus from disaster management to public transit organization and road transport regulation.
Morrison left behind several active projects and concrete achievements at Intrant, including a modernized driver's licensing system, expanded agency offices, and ongoing public transit reorganization. However, Méndez inherits long-standing challenges that have persisted across multiple presidential administrations, including high road mortality, millions of unregulated motorcycles, an unimplemented vehicle inspection framework, weak street enforcement, and institutional reputational damage caused by contracts that ended up in court.
Road accident deaths and safety targets
Intrant reported to the United Nations that 2,992 people died in traffic accidents across the Dominican Republic during 2025. Motorcyclists accounted for more than 65 percent of those fatalities.
In November 2024, the Dominican government declared road safety a matter of high national interest and set an official goal to reduce traffic fatalities by 50 percent by 2030. The national pact presented by Abinader outlined commitments to improve traffic enforcement, permanently institute a driver's license penalty points system, launch mandatory vehicle technical inspections, and strengthen road safety education.
Executing these measures presents one of the primary operational tests for Méndez. While road safety is familiar to him from directing major prevention operations during Christmas, New Year, Holy Week, and other high-mobility periods at the COE, his role now requires regulating daily transit conditions to prevent accidents from occurring.
According to official records from the presidency, Méndez's public career since 2005 has focused on emergency management, disaster response, and inter-agency coordination. At Intrant, he must adapt that background to ongoing regulatory management.
Licensing system reform and penalty points
Among the key assets left by Morrison is the modernized driver's license system, which began operating on March 3, 2026. By mid-August 2026, the new model had issued 329,727 documents.
Intrant reported that the updated licensing framework generated nearly RD$300 million in financial benefits for the state over five and a half months. The agency stated this reversed estimated monthly losses of approximately RD$20 million under the previous licensing contract.
Méndez will need to consolidate the transition and expand licensing coverage, particularly among motorcyclists. When Intrant introduced the new document model in February 2026, the agency estimated that more than one million motorcyclists still needed to be integrated into the system progressively.
A penalty points driver's license system has been included under Law 63-17 and its regulations for years. In November 2024, the government announced that point deductions would begin on July 1, 2025. However, Intrant's 2025-2028 Institutional Strategic Plan still lists the points system for penalizing traffic infractions as an action to be implemented, indicating that full application remains an ongoing institutional hurdle.
Aging vehicle fleet and inspection delays
Another major file awaiting Méndez is the long-delayed Vehicle Technical Inspection (ITV). Law 63-17 mandates periodic mechanical inspections for all vehicles, but the Dominican Republic has lacked an operational national technical inspection system for more than two decades.
The absence of inspection infrastructure is compounded by the age of the national vehicle fleet. Official records from December 2024 showed 6.19 million registered vehicles in the country, with 62 percent manufactured more than ten years earlier. More than 1.6 million vehicles were manufactured in 2000 or before.
The country attempted to tender the technical inspection service in 2019, but the bidding process was declared void in 2020. The project was subsequently restructured as a public-private partnership. In early 2026, the proposal moved toward a concession term exceeding 15 years, with an initial private investment estimated at $88 million.
Public transport expansion and route enforcement
The new director takes charge of a public transport sector that combines the Metro, Teleférico cable car, OMSA state buses, and reformed corridors with thousands of private operators, unions, traditional routes, motorcycle taxis known as motoconchos, and informal services.
System integration continued in 2026 with the opening of the Independencia Corridor in February. On August 10, 2026, the 27 de Febrero Corridor launched operations with an integrated RD$35 fare, allowing electronic payment transfers to the Metro and Teleférico network.
Despite progress in transport integration, daily route enforcement remains weak. In July 2026, Intrant intervened in 17 transport routes in Santiago following unauthorized fare increases. Inspectors checked 180 vehicles, issuing infractions to 85 drivers and impounding three vehicles.
The Santiago intervention highlighted the broader challenge facing Méndez. Although Intrant holds legal authority to set fares, authorize transport routes, issue operating licenses, and regulate services, it must enforce those decisions against transport organizations with long-established political influence.
Street-level enforcement and agency coordination
Law 63-17 will reach its ten-year anniversary in 2027, yet several of its key regulatory tools are not consistently enforced on public roads. Infractions such as helmetless riding, unlicensed motorcycle driving, deteriorated vehicles, heavy freight transport outside allowed hours, illegal parking, reckless driving, and unauthorized route operations frequently require targeted operations by Intrant and the Directorate General of Transit and Land Transportation Safety (Digesett).
The National Road Safety Pact explicitly identified enforcement deficits as a core weakness, establishing improved oversight as one of its seven primary commitments.
Méndez's experience coordinating dozens of public entities during national emergencies may provide an advantage in addressing these issues. Intrant relies heavily on joint execution with Digesett, the National Police, municipal governments, the Ministry of Public Works, and other agencies. However, Méndez must demonstrate that inter-agency coordination can operate continuously rather than through periodic enforcement drives.
Overcoming contract corruption scandals
All of Intrant's operational challenges are overshadowed by persistent reputational damage from past contracting scandals. In October 2023, the General Directorate of Public Contracting (DGCP) suspended a RD$1,317.3 million contract awarded to Transcore Latam to modernize Greater Santo Domingo's traffic control center and traffic light network due to bidding irregularities.
The investigation developed into a high-profile criminal case known as Operation Chameleon (Operación Camaleón). Former Intrant director Hugo Beras, businessman José Ángel Gómez Canaán, and other defendants were sent to trial over alleged contract corruption. Charges include state fraud, technology crimes, identity theft, money laundering, and sabotage of the traffic light network. All defendants preserve their presumption of innocence until a final judicial ruling.
The trial remains active. On August 11, 2026, six days before Méndez's appointment to Intrant, the Third Collegiate Court of the National District issued arrest warrants to compel non-appearing witnesses to attend court and postponed the trial hearing to September 3, 2026.
The judicial case also drew in contracts connected to the previous driver's licensing system, requiring Morrison's administration to run a new tender and replace the former model. As a result, any major future contract issued under Méndez, ranging from vehicle inspection and traffic technology to traffic light networks and automated enforcement, will face heightened public scrutiny.
Méndez enters the role with public standing and administrative experience gained over two decades at the COE. His performance at Intrant will be judged not by rapid emergency responses, but by his ability to execute long-term structural reforms.
