The contract to supply the new vehicles to Wuppertaler Schwebebahn (Wuppertal Suspension Railway) was awarded by WSW mobil to Vossloh-Kiepe with contract signing finalized last Thursday in a festive ceremony in WSW workshop.

The fleet of 31 new vehicles with a total value of 122 m€ will offer modern design, barrierless entry and high comfort and will make a ride around the city faster and even more attractive.

The challenging, worldwide unique project set very high demands towards the preceding EU-wide procurement process. In addition to the supply services, the designer work was procured in a separate procurement.

Especially the eligibility criteria had to be chosen very carefully, since no comparable project references could be demanded from the interested suppliers. The overal goal was to to invite only those bidders who could prove their qualifications and professionalism and at the same time to secure sufficient competition. The project technological complexity with all its interfaces was to be clearly mediated for all the bidders to submit responsive technical and financial proposals.

One of the main challenges here was to develop precise-formulated, well-structured and consistent tendering documentation. Rail&Bus Consultants supported WSW mobil throughout the procurement process and majorly contributed to a conflict-free and successful contract award.

On 6th of March 2011 the new Izmir Commuter Rail System was officially opened in presence of the Prime Minister of the Republic of Turkey Mr. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the Minister of Transport and the Turkish opposition leader. The official opening was preceded by several months of trial runs. Single line sections have been put into operation sequently since 30th August  2010.

The present network consists of two lines with the overall length of 80 km. The Northern line provides access to the residential and industrial areas to the East and to the North of the Gulf of Izmir and goes further 30 km to link the neighbouring municipality of Aliağa. The Southern line connects the Southern city areas and the Izmir International Airport.

33 new electrical trainsets serve 31 railway stations, most of which have been newly constructed. During peak hours the trains operate as coupled 2-car-train with 15-minutes headway.

LRTC GmbH, consulting & engineering company based in Düsseldorf, Germany, was majorly involved in the design and implementation of the system. LRTC team was responsible for the development of the operation concept as well as for design, specification, procurement support and production supervision of rolling stock, depot area, workshop and station equipment.

Rail&Bus Consultants GmbH, the shareholder of LRTC GmbH, provided the overall project management and overall concept development and contributed with its ex-tensive expertise in operation planning & rolling stock procurement. 
 

Werner Lippert, project manager Transportation Planning with Rail&Bus Consultants, writes about Riyadh Comprehensive Bus Public Transport Project  in the November issue of the UITP magazine Public Transport International.

The article can be viewed here.

For further information on the project please visit the project page. 

Since 2009 Rail&Bus Consultants has been supporting WSW mobil GmbH in procurement of new rolling stock for the Wuppertal suspended monorail system “Schwebebahn”. The scope of project has recently been extended to include consulting services and Client support in selection of a design agency to create the exterior and interior layout of the new cars.

The tasks will include performance of the market survey, development and implementation of the procurement process, definition of selection criteria and support through the presentation and negotiation rounds.

The depot site at Lierenfeld includes a light maintenance workshop as well as stabling yards for the tramcar fleet of the Duesseldorf public transport operator Rheinbahn AG.

Due to fleet expansion and the final conversion to low-floor trams the depot itself has to be modernized and extended to provide economically and technologically state-of-the-art maintenance for about 170 low-floor tramcars.

Rail&Bus Consultants will perform the planning of depot technical equipment from the preliminary concept through detailed design up to supervision of construction and installations.