NTA Metropolitan Mass Transit System Ltd. today published the tender for rolling stock for the Tel Aviv Light Railway, after a six-month delay. The publication was made possible after the project's supreme steering committee gave the go-ahead yesterday. The tender is for the purchase of 90 carriages with an option to buy 30 more.
NTA will accept bids through June 2013, and the tender winner will be announced during the third quarter. Updated estimates predict that the light rail's Red Line will carry 240,000 passengers a day when it opens in 2017 on its 23-kilomter route from Petah Tikva, through Bnei Brak, Ramat Gan, Tel Aviv, Jaffa, to Bat Yam. The line is subsequently due to be extended to Rishon LeZion.
Earlier this week, NTA received bids from four European companies to participate in the Red Line's operating systems, which will be installed alongside the civil engineering work. The foreign companies filed joint bids with Israeli partners. In October, NTA received bids from 14 foreign companies, some of them in collaboration with Israeli companies, in the tender for the tunneling of the line's 11-kilometer section and the construction of stations.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on November 8, 2012
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