Metro de Madrid will be advising Salvador da Bahia on the commissioning of their first metro line

The agreement will bring in revenues of around 300,000 euro. Not only the project and state of the infrastructure built, but also the facilities and rolling stock will all be assessed. Recommendations and courses of action will be put forward for their entry into service.

Metro de Madrid opens the door to the Brazilian market in Salvador da Bahia thanks to an agreement under which we will appraise the state of the facilities, rolling stock and construction work in the 6.6 kilometres of the first Salvador da Bahia (Brazil) metro line that have been completed in order to put forward the action steps for this line to be put into service. For this purpose, Metro has deployed a number of experts in Salvador for two months. They will carry out a comprehensive review of the whole project, backed up by the specialists who will be working from Madrid.

This contract, under which Metro de Madrid will receive revenues amounting to some 300,000 euro, is the outcome of the agreement concluded between Metro de Madrid and the public company CTS (Companhia de Transporte de Salvador), operated by the State of Bahia, for the provision by staff of the Madrid Underground of advisory and technical consultancy services to the future Metro System of Salvador e Lauro de Freitas (SMSL).

With this initial contract Metro aims to continue cooperating in the forthcoming stages of the project and to open a door to the vast Brazilian market, which represents great potential in the area of investments in metro and light metro or tramway infrastructure. At the present time, projects on this scale exist in most of the large Brazilian cities, as is the case of Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Porto Alegre, Curitiba and Belo Horizonte, just to mention a few, with a total overall investment amounting to more than €10,000 million and where Metro has already expressed an interest in taking part.

The opportunity got off the ground in September 2012, after the visit by a delegation of the Government of the State of Bahia to the Alto del Arenal facilities and Canillejas Central Workshops, as well as to the Moncloa Interchange. The act formed part of a roadshow that this delegation carried out around Europe and Asia with a view to publicizing the future SMSL tendering process, which encompassed the completion and supply of the construction work, systems and rolling stock, besides the operation and maintenance of two metro lines (one of them being Line 1, partly completed at the present time), serving both the municipalities of Salvador de Bahía, the State capital, and Lauro de Freitas.

A major 1500 million euro project

Last May the Bahia Government announced the international tender, under a 30-year SMSL concession system (3 of construction and 27 of operation), with an estimated budget of 1500 million euro. It is the case of an initiative complying with the public-private participation model, widely implemented in Brazil, where the investment and operating costs are shared by Government and private investors.

The SMSL comprises the 6.6 km section of Line 1 already completed (partly on the surface and partly below ground) between the stations of Lapa and Acesso Norte and four other stations, a new 5.6 km section and three stations from Acesso Norte Station to Pirajá Station and possible extension up to Cajazeiras/Águas Claras Station, all of them in the municipality of Salvador.

The system also comprises Line 2, with a length of 24.2 km and 13 stations, all on the surface, which will run from Bonocô Station, offering transfer to Line 1, in the municipality of Salvador, as far as Aeroporto/Lauro de Freitas Station, in the municipality of Lauro de Freitas, which gives its name to the station.

The Bahia authorities take the utmost interest in the opening of this first section of Line 1, as it should be operational for the holding of the football World Cup that will take place in Brazil in June 2014, where Salvador will be one of the official venues.

Other cities, such as Washington, New York, Denver, Dallas, Bogotá or Sao Paulo, have expressed interest in the consultancy services offered by Metro de Madrid, which shows the potential of Metro activity in this new line of business, which has become one of the most important channels of income for the Company in its untiring efforts to secure new paths of financing.


Exportation of know-how

Foreign visits are a token of the international prestige enjoyed by the Madrid Underground. Many of these are embodied later in consultancy agreements for other transport networks in different parts of the world. Thanks to such assignments last year alone Metro de Madrid obtained 20 million euro and continues exporting its management by way of the international consultancy area.

Specifically, Metro de Madrid has already cooperated on two occasions with the Government of Chile: we have submitted a proposed plan of action for improving the handling of emergencies and critical events in the Santiago de Chile network and executed the Master Training Plan project based on Simulation Tools for Operations staff, as well as various personnel training schemes.

In addition, Metro de Madrid has recently sold a total of 73 cars to Subterráneos de Buenos Aires Sociedad del Estado, SBASE, for a value of close on 28 million euro, the largest operation in terms of volume of sales conducted to date. The sale of these 73 cars joins those already carried out in 2011 and 2012, under which another 36 model 5000 cars, from Lines 6 and 9, were transferred. Through this transaction Metro secured earnings of more than 4 million euro. This third agreement reached by Metro de Madrid, provides an outlet for rolling stock, which, though in excellent running condition, had ceased to be operational in the network through being replaced by other more modern trains of more advanced technology. The economic benefits stemming from this operation will therefore be re-invested in the maintenance of Metro network trains and facilities.