The Bogotá Metro Company in Colombia has announced that the international public tender for the construction of the first line of the Bogota metro will be opened on June 28. The six prequalified consortiums will receive the terms of reference and appendices, giving way to the last stage of the process of selecting the consortium which will build and operate the First Metro Line (PLMB). The estimated investment for the project is US$ 12 billion.

The prequalified consortiums must present their offers at the end of September. Contract award will take place in October 2019 and the construction of the works is planned to start in March 2020.

The six prequalified consortiums have fulfilled all the conditions of experience and legal and financial capacity. In may the Bogotá Metro Company held individual and group meetings with representatives of each consortium, in which the prequalified teams presented their observations to the drafts of the documents that will serve as a basis to advance the last part of the process: the specifications, the contract and its 43 technical appendices. "After analyzing almost 3,900 pages, a total of 2,048 observations were received, which went into the study to enrich the documentation and take into account the multiple scenarios that may occur throughout the contract," said the entity.

The decision of the elevated metro for Bogotá was the result of the study of alternatives carried out by Systra in 2016, hired by the national government. It was welcomed by the National Council for Economic and Social Policy (Conpes) that provided the project with the declaration of strategic importance. The Bogotá Metro Company advances in the purchase of 1435 properties, of which 95% of the priority properties have been offered. The anticipated transfer of networks is also advancing with 123 planned works.

The Bogota metro first line will have a length of 23.96 kilometers and will go from the Portal of the Americas to Caracas Avenue, along Villavicencio Avenue, Primero de Mayo Avenue and Calle 1. Then, the road will go north on Caracas Avenue to 72nd Street. The metro will have 16 stations, 10 interchanges with TransMilenio, every 1.4 kilometers on average. And from the second section, the designs will be ready to reach Calle 127 along the Autopista Norte. 

The consortium that wins this tender will be in charge of building and operating this means of transport for 20 years.