On 3th August 2015 Thales awarded the most important and complex CBTC re-signalling project in the world, a contract worth about one billion euros (710 million pounds) to modernise four London Underground lines (renewals on Hammersmith and & City, Metropolitan, District and Circle Lines.
The work will be done by the Thales CBTC headquarters of Toronto (Canada) and London (UK). The comprehensive solution includes management, design, development, manufacturing, supply, delivery, construction, installation, integration, testing, commissioning and migration.
After the experience got in successfully delivering the JNUP programme (re-signalling on the Northen and Jubilee lines) Thales is most likely to be considered to only company which could really meet the London Underground requirements for this further upgrade programme.
The deal replaces indeed £345m contract which TfL London Underground awarded to Bombardier in June 2011. This was terminated in December 2013, with TfL saying the ‘complex nature of the railway’ meant Bombardier’s programme ‘was simply not progressing and there was no guarantee it would have worked’.
These improvements will boost capacity by an average of a third on the four lines and is vital in order to support London’s growing population, which is expected to increase from 8.6 million today to 10 million by 2030. Work already began in the Thales UK headquarter in London and the main benefits will be delivered by 2022, when the frequency of trains running during peak periods will increase to 32 trains per hour in central London – a train every two minutes – with frequency increases at other times as well.
For more information about the Thales CBTC Seltrack solution, please refer to this link.
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