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Maryland Transit Administration (MTA) has received proposals from the four shortlisted teams to develop the Light Rail (Purple Line) P3 project in Maryland, USA.

This announcement comes after the Governor Larry Hogan announced, in July this year, that the State of Maryland will move forward with the project. At that time, Mr Hogan said that the state will fund about US$168 million of the project investment.

The short-listed teams were announced in January 2014, but after that, the deadline to submit proposals was extended several times. The four teams that have bid for the project are the following:

• Maryland Purple Line Partners: VINCI Concessions, Walsh Investors, InfraRed Capital Partners, ALSTOM Transport and Keolis S.A.

• Maryland Transit Connectors: John Laing Investments Limited, Kiewit Development Company and Edgemoor Infrastructure & Real Estate LLC

• Purple Line Transit Partners (PLTP): Meridiam Infrastructure Purple Line, LLC, Fluor Enterprises, Inc. and Star America Fund GP LLC

• Purple Plus Alliance LLC Proposer: Macquarie Capital Group and Skanska Infrastructure Development Inc.

The preferred bidder is expected to be selected by early 2016 and the new line is scheduled to be operational by 2021.

The project involves the development of a 25.75 km light rail line that would run east-west inside the Capital Beltway between Bethesda in Montgomery County and New Carrollton in Prince George's County. The new line would include the construction of 21 stations that would provide direct connections to Metrorail's Orange Line, Green Line and two branches of the Red Line, and the MARC Brunswick, Camden and Penn Lines.

The project will be developed on a design, build, finance, operate and maintenance (DBFOM) basis. The PPP contract will have a period of of 35 years. The project also involves the supply light rail vehicles.

The total project investment was previously estimated at US$2 billion, but the project cost will not be established until MTA accepts a proposals. The government expects to save about US$300 million. These cut costs include, among others, making train headways 7 and a half minutes instead of 6 minutes.

The new facilities would carry approximately 58,000 riders-day if it opens as scheduled in 2021 and ridership could rise to 74,000 riders-day by 2040.

Throughout this month we have reported on several PPP projects in the USA:

• University of South Florida (USF) student village
• Chicago Skyway Concession
• South Mountain Freeway P3 (Arizona)
• Dana Point Harbor revitalization
• Mixed-use development in El Paso
• Lake Jackson compressed natural gas (CNG) fueling station
• Michigan pump station replacement/rehabilitation