This week’s round-up of news from the urban transport sector.
The 5·3 km first section of Mumbai metro Line 2B from Mandale to Diamond Garden opened to the public on April 8, along with the 4·5 km Line 9 from Dahisar East to Kashigaon. Line 2B is being built by Hindustan Construction Co, Dilip Buildcon, J Kumar Infraprojects and Ranjit Buildcon. The remaining sections of the 23·6 km line are to open through 2026 and 2027. BEML has delivered 63 six-car trainsets for lines 2A, 2B and 7. Line 9 was built by J Kumar Infraprojects and Simplex Infrastructures and is operated as an extension of Line 7.
Roma city council has called tenders valued at €252m for the design and implementation of a modernisation and extension of the Termini – Giardinetti light rail line. This includes reconstruction of the 950 mm gauge route to 1 435 mm, a change of voltage from 1·65 kV DC to 600 V DC, reconstruction of the Centocelle depot and the restoration of the section from Parco di Centocelle to Giardinetti where services are currently suspended. The line would then be extended by a further 3·6 km from Giardinetti to the Parcheggio Scambiatore A1 park-and-ride facility in Tor Vergata, and by 540 m from the Laziali terminus to meet routes 5 and 14 at the Termini hub.
The Junta de Andalucía has appointed a joint venture of Madrid-based bus operator Grupo Ruiz and the Lisboa urban rail operator Barraqueiro to operate the 4·7 km long mothballed tramway in Jaén which is being reactivated. The four-year contract is worth €10·9m+VAT, well below the €17·8 m budgeted amount. There is an option to extend the contract by one year. Other bidders included ALSA and Avanza.
Following testing as standalone systems, the latest phase of test running on Sydney’s Sydenham – Bankstown metro extension along the former Bankstown suburban rail route sees trains, signalling, platform screen doors, mechanical gap fillers and station systems operating together together as a unified system.
Czech turnout manufacturer DT Výhybkárna a Strojírna has supplied Bremen tram operator BSAG with a track fan consisting of three switches and 55 m of track panels for installation at a depot. ’This is another interesting project for a German customer’, said the supplier’s CEO Marek Smolka. ’German customers are among the most demanding. They insist on absolute dimensional accuracy and high-quality workmanship. Thanks to our ability to fully meet their quality requirements, they repeatedly return to us.’
Hellenic Metro has formally approved a three-year extension to the completion deadline for the 12·8 km Alsos Veikou–Goudi section of Athens Metro Line 4, pushing the expected delivery date to 2032. This falls short of the request submitted by the construction consortium of Avax, Ghella and Alstom, which had sought an extension until 2034. The contract for the main works was signed in 2021 when completion was envisaged by June 20 2029. Initial delays were attributed to slow progress on preliminary works carried out under a separate contract.