CATALONIA Railway Infrastructure (Ifercat) has selected Spanish companies Ingeteam and Istem to install the Ingeber energy recovery system on Barcelona metro Line 9, which will recover 10-30% of the braking energy produced by the line's trains.

LONDON Underground (LU) has today confirmed that funding for the £284m Metropolitan Line Watford extension has been finalised, with construction scheduled to begin next year.

SINGAPORE Land Transport Authority has awarded the first contract civil works on the East Coast section of the Thomson-East Coast Line (TEL) to Samsung C&T, which will construct Marine Parade station and associated tunnels in a deal worth around $S 555m ($US 394m).

NUREMBERG Transport (VAG) announced on November 17 that it will replace the oldest rolling stock in its U-Bahn fleet with new trains from mid-2018.

BERLIN Transport Authority (BVG) plans to set up a finance company in January to help fund the renewal of life-expired U-Bahn trains and trams and expand its fleet during the next 20 years at a cost of €3.1bn.

SAN FRANCISCO Bay Area Rapid Transit (Bart) announced on November 16 that the first of 775 Fleet of the Future metro cars is nearing completion at Bombardier's Plattsburgh plant in New York state and will be dispatched by road to California next month.

THE Australian state government of New South Wales has launched the formal planning process for Stage 2 of the Sydney Metro project, which will be known as Sydney Metro City and Southwest.

BANGALORE marked the extension of metro services into the city's western districts on November 16, when the chief minister of Karnataka state Mr S Siddaramaiah inaugurated the 6.8km Magadi Road - Mysuru Road section of the Purple Line.

THE mayor of Istanbul Mr Kadir Topbaş announced on November 11 that construction will begin on 10 urban rail projects totalling nearly 100km next year as the city continues its drive to expand the network to 483km by the end of the decade.