The contract has been signed with the Dominican Republic's Oficina para la Reorganización del Transporte (OPRET). The new line with its 16 stations will be about 14 kilometers long and link the north and the south parts of the city. It is the first stage in a major upgrade of the island's transportation systems designed to meet the growing needs of the capital's three million residents for mass transit infrastructure. Work on the metro began 10 months ago. The line is due to open in 2008.
Siemens and Thales are to supply the fixed trackside equipment for the new line. The Siemens scope of supply involves the project management, signaling and safety systems, automatic train protection, the operations control system and the power supply. The latter includes traction substations and the 1500 V DC overhead contact line.
Thales will supply the supervision systems comprising station control and the operations control centre, telecommunications and SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition), access control and contactless fare collection. Based on SCADA technology, the Thales SCADASoft is a modular solution meeting all the function requirements of a supervision system. It ensures the smooth management of day-to-day activities and allows efficient management and resolution of emergency situations.
"As market leader in the field of turnkey solutions for mobility systems, Siemens is proud to have been awarded this contract for the capital of the Dominican Republic. Our experience and expertise with systems integration and project management have been demonstrated by numerous tailor-made turnkey projects the world over, including Latin America. This expertise will make sure that Santo Domingo will receive a state-of-the-art metro system," said Mr. Stefan Hofsäss, President of the Turnkey Systems Division at Transportation Systems.
"The new contract is a further illustration of the strong international demand for the ad-vanced technologies that offer public transit users a simple, modern service. It confirms Thales's know how in the field of cutting-edge transportation solutions, combining here our ticketing and our low voltage solutions. Our low voltage solution clearly demon-strates the benefits for the operator of a tight integration between supervision, commu-nications and security in a single control system," said Jean-Louis Olié, Managing Direc-tor of Thales Transportation Systems.