KING Abdullah Financial District (KAFD) is one of the landmark stations on the 176km metro network in the Saudi Arabian capital Riyadh and a striking addition to the city’s growing collection of impressive buildings. There isn’t a single right angle in the web of tubes that form the station façade, built to resemble wind-sculpted desert sand dunes, and pierced by three elevated metro lines. Passengers lucky enough to be at the front of an approaching driverless train are offered spectacular views of the station and the surrounding high-rise buildings that will soon be served by a 3.6km monorail, now under construction.
Since opening at the end of 2024, the metro network has transformed mobility in the rapidly growing city of around 8 million inhabitants. Ridership has far outstripped expectations, with more than 162 million passengers using the six-line network, the world’s longest automated metro network, in its first year of service.
Opening of the city’s first mass transit system was a major event for Riyadh. Large numbers of people visited KAFD and the network’s three other iconic stations, Qasr Al Hokm, Western and STC, in the early weeks of operation to simply experience the service and take in the impressive architecture.
Qasr Al Hokm is particularly eye-catching. A 70m-diameter stainless steel bowl rises above the underground station, a modern landmark in this historic area of the city. Inside, a tropical garden nestles between sweeping façades, many of which incorporate traditional Saudi Arabian art, while the generous underground spaces offer a pleasant experience for passengers using the station.
The inside of KAFD has a similarly modern feel, and features works by world-renowned artists and sculptors. An emergency queuing system was introduced here in the early weeks of service to manage demand. And a good proportion of these people are coming back, with many leaving their cars at one of the network’s 19 park and ride facilities to use the metro for their daily commute or to spend leisure time in the city.
Opening the network
The big-bang opening of the metro took place between December 1 2024 and January 5 2025. All lines were built concurrently under the world’s largest single-phase metro construction programme, which commenced in 2014. Three international consortia were charged with building and equipping the network under contracts awarded in 2013 (see panel below) while two 12-year operations and maintenance contracts were awarded by the ArRiyadh Development Authority (ADA) in 2018. The Flow consortium of Alstom and Hitachi won the Riyals 10.9bn ($US 2.91bn) contract for lines 3, 4, 5 and 6. Capital Metro Company (Camco), a joint venture of RATP Dev (80%), the contract operating arm of Paris public transport operator RATP Group, and Saudi Public Transport Company (Saptco) (20%) won the Riyals 8.5bn contract for lines 1 and 2.
Capital Metro Company
CAPITAL Metro Company (Camco) is responsible for the operation and maintenance of lines 1 and 2. Its offices are located at King Fahad Sport City, the eastern terminus of Line 2 and the location of the line’s maintenance depot and operations control centre (OCC). The Line 1 OCC and depot is located at Ad Dar Al Baida district, in southern Riyadh.
On Line 2, trains operate at a peak frequency of 4 minutes, with up to 20 in service at any one time. In the shoulders of the peaks, 16 trains operate every 5 minutes, while 12 are used to operate off-peak services which run at intervals of 6min 40s. Trains operate at up to 80km/h.
Camco is also responsible for passenger services, safety and security on lines 1 and 2. In addition, it takes care of facilities management, including stations.
Completing this major project was far from straightforward, however. Testing on some lines began as long ago as 2020 and there was optimism in the early days of testing that the first paying passengers would board trains by the end of 2021. However, construction on other lines was further behind, with the Covid-19 pandemic presenting major challenges to successful completion.
As Hiba Farès, CEO of RATP Dev, revealed to IRJ during a visit to Riyadh, the project effectively ground to a halt during the pandemic. Payments to contractors were suspended as uncertainty grew at the height of the crisis over when the project would be completed. While concerned, Farès says the client remained steadfast in its determination to complete the network. “They told us to be patient, to stay with them,” she says.
After what Farès says were a few months to realign the project, and to renegotiate agreements with contractors, momentum was steadily restored. Eventually, opening dates were agreed for all six lines, although not confirmed to the public until just a few days before the first lines - Line 1 (Blue), Line 4 (Yellow), and Line 6 (Purple) - opened on December 1 2024.
While RATP was in a strong position with Line 2, which opened on December 15 2024, Farès says it was further behind with Line 1. “We had to open it in record time,” she says. “We had three, four months max to do all the testing and ensure the future security of the line.
“We also had to hire 3000 people in 12 months with no prior experience of public transport operation,” Farès continues. “It was on average 200 hours of training per employee, and for some positions, 600 hours. This was challenging. It was the first time that we faced such an opening - no other network had opened six lines at once.”
The operating and maintenance team assembled during this hiring process comprises 28 different nationalities. Tarfa Alomar, Camco’s HR director, says that along with technical and practical training, Camco focused on settling staff into life in Riyadh while training them to meet the demands and expectations of working on the city’s new metro. English is the sole working language and Alomar says there is an ongoing effort to bring staff together, both in the workplace by hosting forums for employee feedback, and through social and cultural events. “We want them to know the culture of Saudi Arabia and to understand their culture as well,” she says.
The joint venture is also embracing “Saudisation” of its workforce. The proportion of local people employed by Camco increased from 30% to 70% as the total headcount grew from 450 to 3400 ahead of the start of operations. The hope is that many of these local people will progress to fill important roles within the joint venture that are currently staffed by experienced expats. Women also make up 32% of the workforce, some holding important and influential roles, reflecting the ongoing changes in Saudi society, which Farès says RATP Dev is proud to support.
Inevitably the metro experienced teething troubles in its early days of operation, but nothing unexpected for a greenfield project, according to Abdeljabbar Ben Salem, senior vice-president for RATP Dev Saudi Arabia and UAE. “We had availability incidents like any launch in the world,” he says, pointing to software updates and the need to replace and modify sensors that were not working correctly.
As these issues were ironed out, the network has settled into a rhythm of high reliability and availability. RATP Dev reported an availability rate in 2025 of 99.997% for Line 1, ahead of its objective of 99.63%, and 99.998% for Line 2 ahead of the target of 99.75%, with only a handful of significantly disruptive incidents reported during the first year.
While clearly a client with high expectations, Farès says RCRC is never unreasonable or unrealistic. She says its management has a strong understanding of the systems installed on the network and their capabilities, reflected in the key performance indicators (KPIs) that RATP Dev and its partners are required to meet for criteria such as network availability, punctuality, and safety, as well as asset performance. “They took the time to learn a lot about train systems,” she says. “They really understand technically and operationally what is happening.”
She also reports a high level of trust between the two partners, which provides Camco with the confidence to take the initiative when it sees fit. For example, by maintaining a high staff presence during the early days of operation in order to provide reassurance to passengers who have never used a metro before. In addition, notices were placed on platform screen doors asking passengers to let people off the train before they board, an issue for any metro, while audio announcements were made to provide further guidance.
Malangou Seyadou, managing director of Camco, says the strategy was to maintain the “wow” effect of the metro by reducing the chances that things might go wrong, and by providing a high level of customer service to avoid people criticising the metro on social media “and kill it before it even started.”
Lines 1 and 2 are the backbone of the network, providing north-south and east-west connectivity across the city. Together they account for 60% of total ridership - some 100 million passengers since opening in December 2024 - with up to 215,000 passengers now using Line 1 every day, according to Seyadou, and up to 67,000 using Line 2. He says current capacity can support up to 1.6 million passengers per day, and he expects the network to continue to progress towards this level.
The world’s largest single-phase metro construction programme
THE Riyadh metro project was divided into three construction packages overseen by two project management consultants (PMC). The Riyadh Metro Transit Consultants (RMTC) PMC comprising Parsons, Egis and Systra oversaw packages 1 and 2 covering lines 1, 2 and 3. The Riyadh Advanced Metro Project Execution and Delivery (Ramped) consortium of WSP and Hill International oversaw Package 3 covering lines 4, 5 and 6.
Package 1 was a $US 10.1bn programme delivered by the Bacs consortium of Bechtel, Almabani, Consolidated Contractors Company, and Siemens. Siemens supplied 41 75.7m-long four-car trains for Line 1, and 26 two-car trains for Line 2 along with CBTC for the two lines.
Package 2 was worth $US 6.4bn and was delivered by the ANM consortium of Webuild, Larsen & Toubro, and Nemsa, together with Bombardier (now Alstom), which supplied 47 two-car trains. Hitachi Rail STS supplied CBTC.
Package 3 was worth $US 7.9bn and was delivered by the Fast consortium of FCC, Samsung, Strukton, Freyssinet and Alstom. Alstom supplied 69 two-car trains and CBTC.
In the longer term, up to 3.6 million daily passengers could be carried on the network. This will be achieved through increasing train lengths; four-car trains are operated on Line 1 at present, but platforms at all 85 stations on the network can accommodate longer trains. Current peak headways of 4 minutes made possible by the CBTC signalling system could be reduced to as low as 90 seconds. And the network is continuing to grow. A construction contract has been awarded for an 8.4km extension of Line 2 (see panel above), development of a seventh metro line is progressing, and an extension of Line 1 is proposed. “The network has been built with the capacity requirements of 10 or more years’ time in mind,” Seyadou says.
Parisian experience
RATP Dev’s work in Riyadh is inevitably informed by the experience of its mother company in Paris, including operation of the city’s automated driverless metro lines 1, 4 and 14. Senior RATP staff have brought their experience to Riyadh, including Seyadou, a former operations director for the Paris metro, while regular support is provided to Camco by staff in France. RATP Dev also drew on processes and governance developed by RATP to establish procedures for operations, maintenance, and training, which it adapted to the local environment.
Seyadou says the major challenge facing the operator is to keep up with the dynamic nature of the metro and the city, where expectations can shift very quickly, and need to be met rapidly by what he admits is still an inexperienced team. “We need to be able to react quickly to show the customers and the client that we are working for them,” he says.
One example is the client’s request to bring forward the start of service each day on lines 1 and 2 by 30 minutes to 05.30. This change was made on September 7, just two weeks after the request was made.
Seyadou explains that Camco used this time to prepare staff to work new shift patterns and to adjust maintenance schedules, while carrying out trial runs at weekends to identify and eliminate any possible issues. However, rather than working from scratch, he says Camco harnessed contingency and emergency management plans that it had already developed, and which are based on RATP’s standard operating procedure (SOP) and emergency SOP.
He says the plans establish a single chain of command in order to mobilise staff and amend operating and working procedures throughout the metro, “so that everyone knows what they have to do.” This includes teams at the operations control centre (OCC) for lines 1 and 2 overseen by Camco, and the traffic control centre (TCC) for the city’s entire transport network managed by Royal Commission for Riyadh City (RCRC). The principles of the plan were also shared with the Flow consortium at the request of the client.
Successful delivery of this change in such a short period of time reflects Ben Salem’s observation that RATP Dev had to “prepare an organisation that is ready for the unexpected.” It is also indicative of the high level of ambition that RCRC retains for its metro network, enduring from the original plan of building all six lines at the same time. Indeed, Seyadou believes that with the network using technology “that you might dream of having elsewhere,” Riyadh is becoming a laboratory for operators seeking to maximise the efficiency and effectiveness of their own existing and future automated metros.
Examples include the pioneering use of air-conditioning at stations and onboard trains and the availability of redundant power systems to support emergency recovery operations. The CBTC system supplied by Siemens for lines 1 and 2 features a reverse mode for use in emergency situations and failures. Rather than remaining stationary during a power outage, trains are able to draw power from localised networks to reverse to the previous station and enable passengers to alight safely without having to go outside into the potentially dangerous desert heat, a novel feature which Seyadou says could only be dreamt of in Paris.
The CBTC system also enables the operator to easily bring additional trains into service to meet peaks in demand, which are expected when Riyadh hosts major events such as the World Expo in 2030 and football World Cup in 2034.
“When we opened Line 14 in Paris, we had people from all over the world come to learn about what we had done,” Seyadou says. “We’re beginning to see that here in Riyadh. People are not only interested in the technology but also the iconic stations, how they have been built, and how they are offering high levels of customer service and experience.”
Once the world’s biggest metro construction project, Riyadh is now embracing its new-found status as the world’s largest automated metro. The network, and the teams running its six lines, are already setting a new benchmark for the best in new urban rail transport, an accolade that the network looks set to retain well into the future.
Red Line extension contract confirmed
THE Royal Commission for Riyadh City (RCRC) confirmed on January 12 that it has appointed a consortium led by Italian construction firm Webuild to build the 8.4km extension of Line 2 (Red).
The consortium also includes India’s Larsen & Toubro, Saudi Arabian firm Nesma, and Alstom, and the project is expected to take six years to complete. IRJ originally reported on the contract award in July 2025.
The extension will run from Line 2’s current western terminus at King Saud University to Diriyah, a Unesco World Heritage site, where a major development project is underway to transform the area into a cultural and tourist centre.
The extension comprises a 7.1km tunnel, which will be excavated with a tunnel boring machine (TBM), and a 1.3km elevated section. It will include five new stations, three of which will be underground, with two located at the university, and the remaining three stations in Diriyah.
The new section of line includes a future interchange with the planned metro Line 7 at Diriyah Central. This 65km line with 19 stations will run from King Khalid International Airport via Diriyah to Al-Musahmiya in Qiddiya, a new city under construction as a leisure and tourist destination.
