DENMARK: The Aarhus Letbane partnership of the city of Aarhus and Midtjylland region has decided to terminate the contract for Keolis to operate the 114 km light rail and tram-train network, and is to bring operations in-house from December 20 2026.
‘The purpose of carrying out the operator tasks ourselves is, among other things, to reduce the complexity of daily operations, including making the allocation of responsibility more unambiguous’, explained Aarhus Letbane CEO Michael Borre on December 19. ‘We have had a good collaboration with Keolis Letbaner over the years, but have realised that the organisation around the light rail has been too complex. At the same time, we believe that we can make operations more economically efficient through the removal of duplicate functions.’
Employees will transfer across with unchanged terms. ‘The individual employees possesses essential competencies that will be important after the operations have been transferred’, said Borre.
Keolis Letbaner CEO Thomas Friis Brændstrup said ‘we are very proud that for the past eight years, together with all our good colleagues in the Keolis Group, we have ensured a safe and efficient operation of the light rail in Aarhus with very high quality in execution and at a competitive price. The organisation of the light rail is ultimately a political choice, and we can only regret that they did not want to put the task out to tender, and thereby ensure the highest quality at the least possible cost. We wish Aarhus Letbane the best of luck in handling the task itself.’
