MEXICO: National rail and public transport authority ATTRAPI has awarded a consortium of Siemens Mobility and local partner Sonda a 3·84bn pesos four-year contract to design and supply ETCS Level 1 for the modernisation of the Mexico City – Querétaro – Irapuato rail corridor to carry passenger services.
Siemens Mobility will provide ETCS Level 1 lineside equipment, SCADA and a control centre and backup for more than 300 route-km with 11 stations. Its Hacon subsidiary will supply TPS.plan software for train planning and timetable optimisation.
The contract ‘represents our first ETCS project in Mexico and the debut of our TPS.plan train planning software in Latin America’, said Marc Ludwig, CEO for Rail Infrastructure at Siemens Mobility, on March 26. ‘The Mexico City – Querétaro – Irapuato corridor will not only improve regional transport but will also support Mexico’s sustainable development goals by modernising its passenger rail infrastructure.’
Sonda will be responsible for telecoms, access control, CCTV and civil works. ‘Our role is not just to install technology, but to guarantee that everything functions as an ecosystem from day one’, said Gabriel Fernández, Smart Cities Director at Sonda Mexico. The company added that one of the project’s most significant technical challenges would be ensuring interoperability with the capital’s Tren Suburbano network at Cuautitlán station, where there will be an transition between control systems on the existing Buenavista – Cuautitlán suburban passenger network and the future Mexico City – Irapuato route.
‘Mexico is one of the markets with the greatest potential for the digital transformation of public infrastructure in Latin America’, said Rivaldo Ferreira, Managing Director of Sonda Mexico. ‘This award allows us to demonstrate in practice that Sonda has the capacity to participate in projects of this scale and complexity.’
ATTRAPI was established by the government earlier this year to develop passenger rail projects, and is currently developing a further signalling tender for the Saltillo – Monterrey corridor.
