Hyundai Rotem train on the Canada Line (© FlickR/GoToVan)
On 22 February transport authority TransLink announced that new metro cars will be ordered for delivery three years ahead of schedule. The move aims to boost capacity and frequency amid fast-growing ridership in the Vancouver area.
Along with its provincial and federal partners, TransLink (also known as South Coast British Columbia Transportation Authority) are accelerating the purchase of 28 additional SkyTrain cars on the Expo and Millennium Lines. Read more →
The first FAO line in Turkey, Istanbul’s M5, opened on 15 December 2017
On 1 February the Municipality of Kocaeli, Turkey, announced a call for tenders for building a fully automated metro line between Gebze and Darıca, located approximately 50 km away from Istambul.
The planned driverless metro will have 12 stations and be 15.6 km long. Trains will run at 90-second intervals.
Construction is planned to start during the first half of the year and the line is to be completed in 1,560 days, the Municipality announced.
The first fully automated metro line in Turkey, Istanbul’s M5, opened on 15 December 2017.
Source:
Kocaeli Municipality press release
REM and future metro network of Montreal
On 8 February the Quebec institutional investor CDPQ Infra announced the winning bidders for the construction and operation of the Réseau express métropolitain (REM), the large automated metro project for the city of Montreal. Read more →
© Flickr/xiquinhosilv
Shanghai metro Line 14, scheduled to open in 2020, will be fully automated. The 38.5km long line will run east-west from Fengbang to Jinsui Road. It will have 31 underground stations and will connect to at least 13 other lines of the city’s network.
Shanghai Shentong Metro Group Co. Ltd. awarded the signalling contract for the future line to Thales SEC Transport (TST), a joint venture between Thales and Shanghai Electric.
“The Shanghai Line 14 project underlines the trust that Thales, SEC, and TST have built in China. It demonstrates the great success of our strategy on localizing R&D through our joint venture TST. This allows us to develop customised solutions in China with solid support from the Thales Group”, said Laurent Guyot, VP North Asia & CEO of Thales in China.
Shanghai currently has 16 urban railway transit lines in operation with a total length of 666 km.
Source:
Thales press release
© VAG/Claus Felix
Planning and building an automated line involves additional challenges compared to a traditional non-automated line. The Observatory of Automated Metros has identified these technical and management differences and issued recommendations for future fully automated operation (FAO) projects in a new report. Read more →