Six consortiums are in the running to design and build Dubai Metro’s $4.9bn Blue Line, business website Zawya reports.

Dubai’s Roads & Transport Authority (RTA) put out a request for expressions of interest in October and has now announced the teams in competition for the project. They are:

• Hyundai Rotem (South Korea), China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation, and Nippon (Japan);
• China Railway Rolling Stock Corporation, Limak Holding, and Mapa Group (both from Turkey);
• Siemens (Germany), Samsung (South Korea), Larsen & Toubro (India), Wade Adams (UAE);
• Alstom (France), FCC (Spain), China State Construction Engineering Corporation;
• CAF (Spain), China Tiesiju Civil Engineering Group, Arab Contractors (Egypt)
• Hitachi (Japan), WeBuild (Italy).

The 30km line will have 14 stations and 28 trains, and will run north to south in the east of the city. When complete in 2029 it is expected to carry 320,000 passengers a day to and from Dubai Creek Harbour, Dubai Festival City, International City, Al Rashidiya, Al Warqa, Mirdif, Dubai Silicon Oasis, and Dubai Academic City.

A winner for the scheme will be chosen this year, after which the construction of tunnels will start in 2025, trial operations will begin in 2028 and full commercial operations will get under way in 2029.