The foundation stone for the Dubai metro project is to be laid this month, following the recent award of the Dh12.45 billion ($3.39 billion) contract by Dubai Municipality to Dubai Rapid Link (DURL) – a consortium of four companies headed by Mitsubishi Corporation of Japan – for the construction of Dubai metro.

The group, whose other members include Japanese Obayashi and Kajima and Turkey's Yapi Merkezi, also won a Dh1.88 billion contract to carry out maintenance of the high-tech driverless rail transit system for 15 years.  The consortium beat competing bids from companies including France's Alstom, Canada’s Bombardier and Siemens of Germany.
Dubai Municipality director-general Qassim Sultan said the selection of Dubai Rapid Link came after a detailed, three-month long evaluation of both financial and technical offers submitted by the four internationally renowned consortia.
Sultan also said that the project would be constructed in two phases within 55 months with phase one taking 49 months and phase two 35 months.
“We will start phase two 20 months into phase one, finishing both in less than five years,” he said.
Explaining the tendering and evaluation process, Nasser Ahmed Saeed, general co-ordinator of the project, said tenders were floated on August 1, 2004 with the last offers received this Februarry. Since then, the project's technical team has done a thorough analysis of the offers.
“We found all the offers were acceptable from a technical point of view,” he said. "The difference was that some consortia were better than their counterparts in certain aesthetic aspects.  The technical team found that all consortia have the potentials and expertise to undertake the turnkey project.
“However, there was a substantial difference in terms of the rates quoted by the consortia. So, the selection was made less difficult,” he said.
The final rates, quoted by the four consortia, stood at Dh12.45 billion (DURL), Dh18.26 billion (Dubai Star), Dh18.84 billion (Salsabeel) and Dh19.29 billion (Metro One).
The Dubai Metro will have two lines with the Red Line running from Rashidiya Station to Jebel Ali Station and the Green Line from the Dubai Airport Free Zone to Dubai Health Care City.