Riyadh Metro project 68% complete, says governor

Riyadh Metro project is 68 percent complete and is progressing according to plan, said Prince Faisal Bin Bandar Bin Abdulaziz, governor of Riyadh and chairman of Arriyadh Development Authority’s (ADA).

The trial run of several routes is expected by the end of this year, he added, according to ADA’s website.

Work on the project is still ongoing at 250 sites across Riyadh Metro’s network, said Ibrahim Al-Sultan, ADA’s director of projects and planning center.

The project’s bridges are 98 percent complete, while the 36-kilometer surface tracks are fully finished. The railway tracks are 68 percent installed, and 90 percent of the public service networks intersecting with the project’s tracks were altered along 330 kilometers.

In 2013, Saudi Arabia awarded an international consortium— comprising Germany’s Siemens, Canada’s Bombardier and France’s Alstom– contracts worth SAR 84.4 billion ($22.5 billion) to build a 300-train metro system in Riyadh, of which ADA received 60 trains so far.

When complete, the metro line will span 176 kilometers and include 85 stations. A bus network will complement the project with 24 routes, running 1,083 kilometers and stopping at 776 stations.