The underground line will be Romania’s first fully automated metro line.
The line to the city will be completely underground.
Cluj-Napoca City Hall has awarded a consortium of Gulermak, Alstom and Arcada a €1.8bn turnkey contract for the construction of Cluj-Napoca Metro Line 1, in Romania’s Transylvania region.
The entire 21km line will have 19 underground stations and will be Romania’s first fully automated metro line. The 9km phase 1 will have nine stations and an above ground depot, and will be financed through Romania’s National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP). The project is expected to take four years to complete.
Gulermak and Arcada will be responsible for the civil works of the underground line.
Alstom’s share of the contract is worth €400m. The manufacturer will be responsible for system integration, CBTC signaling and telecommunications, power supply and track work, platform doors, security and control center, as well as implementing proven cybersecurity throughout the system. The Urbalis CBTC system will support train operations at 90-second intervals.
The first three stations will serve the new residential area in Florești, while two stations will serve the future hospital and shopping center. Three stations will serve the Mănăștur district, the densest housing area in the city, with the line following the west-east main road through the city center to Mărăști Square. From here, a branch will continue to the industrial area around Muncii Boulevard, providing a link to the main train line and the future metro service, Another branch will serve the neighborhoods of Gheorgheni and Sopor, where the depot is located.
The tender for the contract was issued in March 2022. A contract to conduct a feasibility study for the line was awarded to a team led by SWS Engineering in October 2021. A financing agreement for the line was signed on December 29 2022 between of the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure and the Cluj-Napoca City Hall.
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