Saudi Arabia’s Royal Commission for Riyadh City (RCRC) has awarded a major contract worth up to $900 million to the Arriyadh New Mobility Consortium to build the next phase of the Riyadh Metro project, which is the Line 2 (Red Line) extension, reported MEED.

The consortium comprises global players including Italy’s Webuild, India’s Larsen & Toubro (L&T), Saudi group Nesma & Partners, Japan’s Hitachi, Italy’s Ansaldo STS, the Canadian firm Bombardier, Spain’s Idom and WorleyParsons from Australia.

Line 2 extension is 8.4-km long – of which 1.3 km is elevated and 7.1 km is underground. It includes five stations – two elevated and three underground. It will run from where Line 2 currently ends at King Saud University (KSU) and then extend onwards to new stations at KSU Medical City, KSU West, Diriyah East, Diriyah Central, where it interchanges with the planned Line 7, and then finally to Diriyah South.

Riyadh Metro Transit Consultants (RMTC), a joint venture between the US-based firm Parsons and the French engineering firms Egis and Systra, is the project management and construction supervision consultant.

RMTC had previously worked as a project management and construction supervision consultant on Lines 1, 2 and 3.

The Riyadh Metro’s first phase features six lines – Blue; Red; Orange; Yellow; Green and Purple – with 84 stations. Spanning 176 km, the network is longest driverless metro line in the world featuring 85 transit stations and seven rail depots. The RCRC completed the phased rollout of the Riyadh Metro network when it started operating the Orange Line in January. In December last year, the RCRC started operating the Red Line and Green Line.