PANAMA Metro has awarded a €145m contract to a consortium including Alstom, Thales, Sofratresa, CIM, and TSO to expand the Panama City metro Line 1 train fleet and upgrade the line's signalling system, power supply, and depot facilities.

BRAZILIAN president Ms Dilma Rousseff attended a ceremony in Salvador on December 22 to open Pirajá station and the final 2.2km phase of the original 11.9km metro Line 1, 12 years after the project was initially scheduled for completion.

PLANS to build a third metro line in the French city of Toulouse have been firmed up with the selection of a 21km core section with 17 stations running in an arc from Montaudran in the southeast via Toulouse Matabiau station and then west to serve the aeronautical zone at Colomiers.

THE Punjab provincial government's economics affairs secretary Mr Tariq Bajwa and Mr Sun Ping, vice president of Exim Bank of China, signed a Rs 162bn ($US 1.55bn) soft loan agreement to fund the entire Lahore Orange Line metro project during a ceremony held on December 21.

SHANGHAI launched commercial services on three metro extensions on December 19, taking the total length of the network to 617km with 366 stations.

TRANSPORT for London (TfL) announced on December 17 that it will begin "detailed technical work" next year to develop a case for the extension of the Bakerloo Line southeast from its current terminus at Elephant and Castle to Old Kent Road and Lewisham.

METRO Jeddah invites companies to pre-qualify for tenders to supply trains and equip and fit out the Saudi city's new metro for which civil works prequalification started in July.

A new elevated infrastructure solution for metros is touted as an affordable and sustainable way to bring much-needed public transport to some of the world's worst-served cities. Mercury Rail gave Kevin Smith an exclusive insight into its new Low Cost Sustainable Transport System (LCSTS).

What should the cities of 2050 look like? And what investments in public transport infrastructure are required to meet future demand and improve wellbeing? Dr Lewis Fulton and Kevin Smith review a study by researchers at University of California Davis and the Institute for Transportation Development and Policy which attempts to answer these questions and more.

Deep beneath the streets of Espoo, Finland's second city, the finishing touches are being applied to the first phase of West Metro, the country's largest infrastructure project. Keith Barrow profiles the project and assesses its impact on public transport in the region.