By rosebell
In order to advancing long-planned metro network in Mecca, Saudi Arabia’s Royal Commission for Makkah City & Holy Sites (RCMC) has invited contractors to attend an early market engagement meeting.
The RCMC’s General Transport Centre says, in an explanatory document inviting companies to attend the September 21 event it is seeking to gauge market interest in the multi-billion-dollar project and obtain feedback on its proposed procurement approach.
In accordance with T&TI’s sister publication, MEED’s June report, the project was restarting and the current plans envisage a four-line network, named lines A-D, with 89 stations and three depots to be implemented over three phases between 2032 and 2045.
The concentration of stage 1 would be Lines B and C involving 2.4km of tunneling beneath the Masar project and integration with the existing Mashaer line.
Involving 31 stations, 21 of which would be underground, including three iconic stations, it would stretch a length of just over 62km and a total of 19.5km is due to run through tunnels, while 41.2km will be elevated, with the remainder at grade level.
Daily passenger capacity on the 66 required trainsets is projected to be about 450,000, equating to an annual ridership of 171 million.
The 84.7km-long second phase, due to be operational by 2038, would extend the two lines toward the outskirts of Mecca, and involve the construction of the initial inner, central segments of Lines A and D.
Including an additional 45 stations serving the two new lines as well as two depots and a potential interconnection with the planned Saudi Landbridge, this project will totally be 61.1km elevated and 18.6km underground.
The 59 trainsets for phase 2 would increase the network’s projected total yearly passenger capacity to more than 500 million.
Covering the elevated 36km extension of Lines A and D and providing the procurement of a further 72 trainsets to increase the network’s ultimate passenger capacity to 1.2 million daily and 642 million annually by its completion in 2045, will be the contents of phase 3.
Additionally, the metro plan envisages transit-orientated developments, typically commercial, residential and retail elements to maximise the investment case.
Involving the civil and systems works, the TODs, and the operations and maintenance, employing three distinct packages is the client’s proposed procurement approach, whereas the initial concept calls for some of the project to be delivered on a public-private-partnership (PPP) basis.
Following the September 21 job meeting, RCMC will take questions and feedback from interested companies and says it hopes to publish the results of the early market engagement in early November.
The metro project in was launched in 2013 by the then Mecca Mass Rail Transit Company, but the scheme has faltered for more than a decade because funding issues, land acquisition challenges and scope changes.
The relaunch of the procurement process raises hopes that the project will come to fruition although it is likely to be at least 18 months before any definitive works are expected to start.
Mecca is home to Saudi Arabia’s first metro, the nine-station, 18km-long Mashaer line which opened in 2010. It only operates seven days a year during Hajj but carries more than 2 million pilgrims during that time
