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ComfortDelGro joint venture clinches $5.1 billion Stockholm Metro contract

2024-01-24 00:00:00.0 海峡时报-新加坡原网页

SINGAPORE - Transport giant ComfortDelGro has clinched a major contract to operate the Stockholm Metro system, further expanding the group’s international footprint.

Connecting Stockholm, the group’s joint venture with Go-Ahead Group, was awarded an 11-year contract worth more than 40 billion Swedish krona (S$5.1 billion) to run and maintain Stockholm Metro’s three existing lines – covering seven routes – from May 2025.

This is ComfortDelGro’s first rail contract in Sweden and will be its largest rail passenger operation outside of Singapore, it said in a statement on Jan 24.

On a work day, the metro serves more than 1.2 million passengers in the Swedish capital. It includes 100 stations, six depots and 107km of track.

Connecting Stockholm will handle customer service, planning and delivery of rail services, and fleet, station and depot facility maintenance.

The contract will also allow Connecting Stockholm to provide project support for Trafikforvaltningen, the Stockholm Public Transport Administration, to develop and expand the metro system in future.

Stockholm is building extensions to its three-line metro network and a fourth line.

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ComfortDelGro holds a 45 per cent stake in the joint venture. Its partner Go-Ahead is the majority owner of British rail network Govia Thameslink Railway, with experience in rail operations in Norway and bus services in Sweden.

The Stockholm Metro is currently run by Hong Kong’s MTR, whose concession agreement ends in 2025. MTR has been operating the rail system for 14 years, since 2009.

According to MTR’s annual report, Stockholm Metro is operated by MTR Tunnelbanan, a fully owned subsidiary of MTR Nordic, which is wholly owned by MTR Corp.

ComfortDelGro had faced competition from MTR and Singapore’s dominant rail operator SMRT to operate the metro. Strides International Business, a business arm of SMRT, collaborated with France’s Transdev Group to bid for the contract.

The latest contract brings the total length of rail operated by ComfortDelGro to 317km, and comes after the group was awarded a contract in July 2023 to operate the south sector of Paris’ Line 15 for an initial term of six years, with an opportunity for an extension to nine years.

In 2021, the group won a $1.13 billion contract to operate rail services in Auckland, New Zealand, in a joint venture with Australian operator UGL Rail Services.

ComfortDelGro chairman Mark Greaves said the group’s active expansion into the international rail scene is part of its strategy to grow its core public transportation business into new regions.

In Singapore, ComfortDelGro’s subsidiary SBS Transit operates three rail lines – the North East Line, Downtown Line and Sengkang-Punggol LRT.

ComfortDelGro’s shares closed one cent, or 0.7 per cent, higher at $1.41 on Jan 24.