Dubai Star, a consortium of five international civil engineering, transport and electro-mechanical companies and a local civil engineering group, is making a serious bid to bring the most advanced urban rail transport solution to Dubai's Dh14.3 billion ($3.89 billion) Light Rail project, officials told Gulf News yesterday.
The consortium, led by Germany's Bilfinger Berger AG, France's power and transportation giant Alstom, Japanese civil engineering firm Taisei Corp, Belgium's BeSix, Egyptian civil contractors Orascom and local Al Habtoor Engineering company, have been pre-qualified for the final bidding that is expected to be awarded by the first half of next year.
Dubai Star will make its bids in two phases. "We are submitting the technical offer, including the electro-mechanical as well as equipment for the projects, in November. The final offer will be submitted by January 31," said Charles Carlier, senior vice president, Alstom.
"Our consortium is one of five pre-qualified consortia for final bidding. We expect Dubai Municipality to award the contract by May. The construction period has been tentatively put at four years.
"We are planning to create futuristic looking, fully automatic driverless cars for the system that no urban rail systems have developed so far," he added.
"It will be innovative but based on the proven solutions that we have. We are working on the development of the prototype of the car."
Alstom, which has an order book of 25 billion euros for 2003-04, has operations in 70 countries and employs 77,000 professionals.
Carlier said the company had delivered the first metro in Africa, in Cairo and in Latin America, in Caracas. "We also intend to build the first urban rail system in the Middle East, in Dubai."
Alstom has won a contract to build the world's longest automated metro in Singapore with 31 stations. "Our Dubai project will take the latest innovations a step further and will become a benchmark for future developments."
According to municipality, the Dubai Light Rail network will have two lines.
Each train will be approximately 75 metres long, consisting of five cars, with several double doors allowing fast entry and exit of passengers at stations.
Gulf News
