Saudi Arabia has restarted plans to build the Jeddah Metro, issuing preliminary design consultancy tenders for the Jeddah Metro project’s Blue Line network, reported MEED. 

A 35-km-long network, the Blue Line will run from King Abdulaziz International Airport to the Haramain High-Speed Railway station covering 15 stations.

The tender was issued by Jeddah Development Authority early this month seeking top consultants for the project with March being set as the deadline for bid submission.

Plans for the Jeddah Metro were first publicly floated in the early 2010s and were formally packaged into a wider Jeddah public transport programme around 2013-14, said the MEED report.

In 2014, French engineering firm Systra was appointed to complete preliminary engineering for the Jeddah Metro and the same year, US-based engineering firm Aecom was awarded a SAR276 million ($74 million) contract to provide pre-programme management consultancy services.

This was followed by the appointment of UK-based architectural firm Foster + Partners in 2015 to design the metro stations.

But then the project stalled as government spending priorities were reset and major capital programmes were reviewed following the fall in oil prices in 2015, with the metro’s scope, cost and delivery model coming under reassessment, said the MEED report.

Early concept designs envisaged a multi-line network integrated with buses and, later, other city-wide mobility upgrades, it added.