Keith Barrow

BRITAIN's franchised passenger operators continued to defy the stagnant economic conditions during the third quarter of the 2012-13 financial year according to the latest figures from the Office of Rail Regulation, which reveal record ridership for the period between October 1 and December 31.

THE SAUDI cabinet granted approval on March 11 for Jeddah's Riyals 45bn ($US 12bn) transport master plan, which includes the construction of a 108km light metro network.

FOUR regional railways operating in the Vaud, Fribourg, and Berne cantons of western Switzerland have awarded Stadler Bussnang a joint contract worth a total of SFr 150m ($US 158m) to supply 17 metre-gauge emus, which will be delivered between January 2015 and July 2016.

TRANSPORT for New South Wales (TfNSW) has formed an alliance with Australian partners Leighton Contractors and Abigroup to carry out the $A 265m ($US 273m) Epping – Thornleigh Third Track (ETTT) project, which will increase capacity through a major bottleneck in the Sydney area.

Hyderabad is one of the first cities in India to adopt a public-private partnership model for its metro network, which is claimed to be the world's largest metro PPP.

Ten years after its first line opened, Delhi continues to set an impressive pace with the expansion of its metro network. Keith Barrow looks at how Phase 3 will bring much more of the city within reach of the metro during the next three years.

THE Supervisory Board of German Rail (DB) has approved plans to increase the maximum length of the next-generation ICx long-distance train from 10 to 12 cars in order to raise seating capacity from 724 to 830.

CHINA's Export – Import Bank has signed a $US 278.2m loan agreement with the Sri Lankan government to finance the 115km extension of Sri Lanka Railways' Colombo – Galle – Matara line along the island's south coast to Kataragama.

PARIS Transport Authority (RATP) has awarded a contract worth around €11m to Soitec and a consortium of Philips and French partner Step to install LED lighting at stations across the city's metro and RER networks.

SERBIAN Railways (ŽS) signed a contract with Stadler on March 4 for a fleet of 21 four-car Flirt emus, which will be used on suburban services in the Belgrade area.