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Dubai’s Roads & Transport Authority (RTA) has issued tender documents for the contract to design and build Dubai Metro’s Blue Line, MEED reported.
The companies prequalified to bid for the contract were informed on January 12, the report said.
The six consortiums are Hyundai Rotem, China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation, Nippon (South Korea/China/Japan); China Railway Rolling Stock Corporation, Limak Holding, Mapa Group (China/Turkiye/Turkiye); Siemens, Samsung, Larsen & Toubro, Wade Adams (Germany/South Korea/India/UAE); Alstom, FCC, China State Construction Engineering Corporation (France/Spain/China); CAF, China Tiesiju Civil Engineering Group, Arab Contractors (Spain/China/Egypt) and Hitachi, WeBuild (Japan/Italy).
The RTA invited Expressions of Interest (EOI) from contractors for the project in October 2023, MEED said.
Dubai announced plans to build a new metro line at a total cost of 18 billion UAE dirhams ($4.9 billion) in November 2023.
The Blue Line route will extend for 30-kilometres with half of the line running underground and reaching up to 70 metres in depth, according to a message posted by Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai on messaging platform X (formerly twitter).
The new line will transport 320,000 passengers per day and serve an area with a population exceeding a million, including Dubai Creek Harbour, Dubai Festival City, International City, Al Rashidiya, Al Warqa, Mirdif, Dubai Silicon Oasis, and Dubai Academic City.
An infographic posted by the Dubai ruler also displayed the project’s timeline, with the project award scheduled for 2024, construction of tunnels expected to start in 2025, trial operations planned to begin in 2028, and full commercial operations scheduled to start in 2029.
The Blue Line will have 14 stations and 28 trains. There will be nine elevated stations and five underground stations.
The new metro line is designed to handle an estimated 56,000 passengers per hour in both directions at a service interval of about 1.5 minutes.
Dubai 2040 Urban Master Plan aims to create a ‘20-minute city,’ which ensures that more than 80 percent of essential services are within a 20-minute travel time for residents, fostering a Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) approach, the Dubai Media Office said in a statement.
(Editing by Anoop Menon anoop.menon@lseg.com)
