TAIPEI City Government’s Systemwide E&M Project Office (Sempo) has awarded Alstom and Taiwanese engineering and contracting services company CTCI a contract to supply an integrated metro system for Taipei metro Line 7 phase one. The total contract value is €378m, while Alstom’s share is worth close to €220m.

FRANKFURT Transport (VGF) has reportedly been given the green light to proceed with a €50m order for 22 new metro cars from Bombardier to extend the length of trains operating on three U-Bahn lines.

SAUDI Railway Company (SAR) saw a 139% increase in the number of passengers on its trains during the second quarter of 2018 compared with the same period last year with an extra 46,000 passengers using the North-South Railway between Riyadh and Hail.

THE positive trend for rail freight carriers in Croatia continued in the first quarter of 2018, resulting in an increase in the volume of goods carried and tonne-km.

THE number of passengers transported by rail in Bosnia during the first quarter of 2018 increased by 22.8% to 113,000, compared with 92,000 during the same quarter in 2017, according to data from Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Agency for Statistics.

SOFIA metro operator Metropolitan has signed a Lev 958,000 (€489,800) deal with local company Sweco Energoproekt to design a 5.6km metro line with six stations, which will link the Bulgarian capital’s central areas with the eastern Slatina district.

A pre-feasibility study into an 11km extension of the Bucharest Metro has been approved by the Technical-Economic Council of Metrorex, which runs the metro in the Romanian capital.

OVERNIGHT testing of LRVs on the Canberra Metro light rail line has been ramped up with a view to achieving the scheduled opening at the end of 2018.

LAGOS Metropolitan Area Transport Authority (Lamata) has signed a letter of intent with Alstom regarding phases 1 and 2 of the Blue Line, which will be the first metro line in Lagos.

AFTER a 45-year hiatus, Cambodia Royal Railway restored passenger services between the country’s capital and the Thai border on July 4 with the inauguration of the final section of the reconstructed Phnom Penh - Poipet line.