The French manufacturer wins a 1.1 billion euro contract for the Manila metro in the Philippines.
New success for Alstom in Asia-Pacific. The Frenchman, world number two in rail, has won a contract worth 1.1 billion euros in the Philippines. It will provide an integrated rail system as part of the Greater Manila Metro Lines Extension Project. This project, whose completion is scheduled for 2029, provides for the construction of 27 new stations over 110 kilometers between the mainland and the peri-urban areas of the island of Luzon, the largest in the country.
It is part of a larger rail infrastructure development plan funded by the Japan International Cooperation Agency. And of which Mitsubishi Heavy Industry is prime contractor. It was with the latter that Alstom, leader of a consortium formed with Colas Rail, a rail subsidiary of Bouygues, won the contract.
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Colas Rail is responsible for the track works and the catenary system. This is the second contract signed in less than two weeks by the rail infrastructure specialist. On February 24, Colas Rail, leader of a consortium including Thales and Egis, was selected to design and build Manila’s first underground metro, a 35 km line with 15 stations.
For its part, Alstom is responsible for the intelligence of the new trains, the train control system and passenger safety. The group will supply and integrate the signaling and telecommunications system, ticketing, automated platform doors and the central traffic management station. Added to this are maintenance systems and train depot equipment. Above all, Alstom will deploy, for the first time in Southeast Asia, a state-of-the-art signaling system – traffic management and train control – to European standards (ERTMS level 2 system). Called Atlas, the Alstom solution improves the interoperability, security, system capacity, reliability and energy efficiency of the lines managed. The Atlas solution has already proven itself in thirty countries on board a fleet of trains, including the ICE3, the German TGV.
This breakthrough for Atlas in the Philippines paves the way for other contracts in the region. “This project reinforces our position as market leader in the region, but it is also an ambitious step for the country in achieving an integrated rail network that takes advantage of advances in mainline signaling, for more efficient mobility and sustainable», estimates Ling Fang, president Asia Pacific of Alstom. The latter had already supplied the rolling stock and the signaling system for the first metro line (LRT1) in Manila.
Very promising Asian market
In this region of the world, States are investing to develop rail in order to open up territories, relieve congestion in large urban centers with modern and efficient means of transport, but also meet the imperative of energy transition. According to the European Rail Association (Unife), the rail market in Asia-Pacific, which weighs 14 billion per year, should grow by more than 5% per year on average by 2030.
Present for decades in the region, Alstom has become the leading supplier of complete rail solutions there, since the acquisition of the former Bombardier Transport in January 2021. This outside of China, in a market ultra-dominated (90%) by the Chinese CRRC, world number one in rail. Alstom, which made some 890 million in sales with 6,800 people before the takeover of the former Bombardier, made some 2 billion in turnover there.
Today, the TGV manufacturer employs 14,000 people in this region, including 10,000 in India, a very buoyant market where the government decided, at the start of 2022, to launch a 120 billion five-year plan to develop its infrastructure. railways (freight and passengers). To meet the needs of these countries, Alstom plays the local card with a network of 12 production plants, engineering centers (India and Taiwan) as well as maintenance and service centers. And by recruiting engineers and technicians locally, at the rate of a thousand per year, on average. At the end of 2022, Alstom’s Asia Pacific order book represented 11.9 billion contracts, including 2.1 billion in the first nine months of its 2022-2023 financial year (ending in March).
Among the latest contracts signed in Asia Pacific, the supply of 312 cars for the extension of phase 4 of the Delhi metro, from the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC), for 312 million, announced in November 2022. Or an order of 650 million signed in Australia in April 2022, to supply 100 new generation Flexity 2 trams to the city of Melbourne.
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