Four bidders line-up for Canberra light rail PPP
Capital Metro Agency, representing the Australia Capital Territory (ACT) Government, has received four expression of interest (EOI) for the delivery of the light rail PPP project in Canberra.
The four consortia are the following:
- Canberra Metro: Pacific Partnerships, Mitsubishi Corporation, Aberdeen Infrastructure Investments Limited, John Holland, DB International, Leighton Contractors, Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles (CAF) and Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi.
- ACTIVATE: Downer EDI, Plenary Group Private Limited, Bombardier Transportation Australia, Keolis Downer, Keolis SA, Parsons Brinckerhoff Australia, Aurecon Australasia, Cox Architecture, Itochu Australia and Partners Group AG.
- Connecting Canberra: Capella Capital, TransDev Australia, Alstom Transport Australia, Acciona Infrastructure Australia, Acciona and Coleman Rail.
- CANGO: Macquarie Capital Group Limited, Obrascon Huarte Lain, SMRT International Private Limited, UGL Rail Services, and Siemens.
The shortlist is scheduled to be published by mid 2015 and the winning consortium is expected to commence construction works by early 2016.
Phase I of the light rail line will extend from the city centre Civic to Northbourne Avenue and further towards Gungahlin along Flemington Road. The 12 km light rail PPP project will be developed on a build, own and operate (BOO) basis. The contract period will be 20 years.
The total project investment is estimated at approximately A$783 million (US$637 million), which includes a nominal A$610 million plus A$173 million contingency.
Capital Metro appointed in mid June Clayton Utz to provide specialist legal advice for the project. In May we reported that Ernst and Young was working on the business case.
An Arup-led consortium, which includes six local suppliers, has worked on the project's technical elements including engineering, design, construction, operations, urban design, maintenance, network integration, sustainability, land development and safety management.
This PPP project will be the model for other future potential projects to develop the Canberra light rail network system.
During the last two months we have reported about several Australian transport PPP projects:
