The group is led by ACS Infrastructure Canada, and includes Dragados, SNC-Lavalin, Ellsidon, Veolia and Alstom.

Construction of Ottawa's first light rail line will start within the next few months and revenue service is expected to begin in spring 2018. The line will have 10km of elevated guideway with 10 stations and a 2.5km underground section with three stations in the city centre. The project also involves widening a highway.

Alstom share of the contract is worth around $C 400m and it will supply a fleet of 34 LRVs and maintain them for 30 years. Alstom will use the Ottawa project to launch its new Citadis Spirit LRV which has been developed for the North America market. These low-floor high-capacity vehicles are designed to operate in extreme winter conditions and have a maximum speed of 100km/h.

Services will operate at minimum headways of 1min 45sec with an end-to-end journey time of 24 minutes. This will provide a capacity of 10,700 passengers per hour per direction, which could increase to 18,000 passengers per hour per direction by 2031 if an option for 25 additional LRVs is exercised.