Six international consortia today submitted their candidacies in the NTA Metropolitan Mass Transit System tender for the Green and Purple Lines of the Greater Tel Aviv light rail.
The consortia that fulfill the threshold conditions in the preliminary selection stage will take part in a tender that includes planning, building, and maintaining the railway systems and carriages under the public private partnership (PPP) method.
The NIS 15 billion tender, the largest ever in Israel, is slated for publication in May 2019. The tender format was decided in consultation with professional staff from the Ministry of Transport, the Ministry of Finance Accountant General department, and the Ministry of Finance budget department.
The six consortia are Spanish company CAF and Shapir Engineering and Industry; Chinese company CRRC, Shikun & Binui, and Egged; Alstom, Electra, John Laing, and Dan Bus Company; German company Siemens, Minrav, Allied, and Paz; Chinese company CREC, Canadian company Bombardier, Excellence, the Noy Fund, and Phoenix; and a Chinese consortium of the CCCC and CHEC companies. Other international companies were also interested in the tender, but eventually decided against participating. Among these were Czech company Skoda, and Hitachi group subsidiary Ansaldo, a Japanese-Italian company.
"The great international interest in the tender demonstrates belief in the mass transit project in Israel," says NTA CEO Yehuda Bar-On. "This is another important milestone in the construction of a network that will revolutionize transportation in the greater Tel Aviv region." The two lines will be added to the Red Line, which will begin operating in October 2021, and will serve over 500,000 passengers a day. Three more lines will be added in the next stage.
Infrastructure work on the Purple Line has already begun in north Tel Aviv, and work will also soon begin on the Green Line. At the same time, the tender for tunneling work on the Green Line along Ibn Gvirol Street in Tel Aviv is underway.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on February 28, 2019
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