In outstanding revamp, Egypt's 1st metro line trains to be all new, air conditioned

CAIRO – 23 April 2022: The Egyptian government has taken concrete steps to revamp Greater Cairo's first metro line so as it signed a contract with Alstom to supply 55 air-conditioned trains, and an agreement with the French government to acquire funding worth €776.9 million.

The development of the line includes introducing an automatic operation system of the trains, and reducing headway to 2.5 minutes. What's more, the local component will be 13.3 percent, and the project will be self-funded by the Egyptian government by LE1.18 billion.

As for the loan, its duration is 40 years, including eight years for maintenance works. The grace period is 15 years, and the payback duration is 25 years.

The modernization of the metro project is not the first ongoing cooperation with Alstom. The French company implements the monorail extending between the New Administrative Capital and 6th of October City, the signaling system of Greater Cairo's third metro line executed by a consortium of Egyptian and French companies led by Vinci Construction, and upgrades the signaling systems of railways stretching over 250 kilometers in Beni Suef governorate.

There is also collaboration with other French companies such as RATPDev, which is contracted to maintain and operate the third metro line, and to operate the monorail, and the LRT linking Salam City with the 10th of Ramadan City through the New Administrative Capital.

Egypt's Transport Ministry and the French Ministry of Economy and Finance signed in July, during the former's visit to Paris, a roadmap to fund the purchase of 55 trains for Greater Cairo's first metro line, which is undergoing upgrade works, as well as the trains to be operated on the sixth metro line to be established within years.

That is in addition to financing the introduction of the sixth line's signaling, communications, control, electricity, and ticketing systems. The roadmap also consists of cooperation between French manufacturers and Egypt's Semaf factory to localize the production of railcars.