ALBAWABA - As part of its shift from a car focused transportation practice to a more sustainable public transit system, Saudi Arabia is scheduled to begin operating the first phase of the Riyadh Metro by the start of next month.
According to the Royal Commission for Riyadh City, three of the metro's six lines are scheduled to debut on December 1st, with the complete 176-kilometer network anticipated to be complete by January 5th.
As one of the fastest-growing cities globally, Riyadh is home to approximately eight million residents, according to AFP, and despite extensive plans for a bus network, cars are currently dominating the city’s transportation landscape, a trend the Riyadh Metro aims to change.
With a completely automated, driverless system, the Riyadh Metro can accommodate over 3.6 million people at full capacity. A fleet of 183 trains with 448 carriages, provided by Siemens, Bombardier, and Alstom, will power it, with carriages that boast a cohesive, contemporary design created by the French company Avant Première.
The Saudi Press Agency published a photo of King Salman inaugurating Riyadh's transportation "backbone" metro project, a key component in the Vision 2030 led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, aiming to diversify the economy and modernize infrastructure.
The metro is considered one of the most significant infrastructure projects in Saudi Arabia with an investment of $22.5 billion, with solar panels, trains that are more energy efficient, and technology that uses regenerative braking integrated into the network in design to cut energy usage and reduce the network’s carbon impact, as reported by Gulf Business.
