DUBAI Roads and Transport Authority has signed a five-year service level agreement with Thales to provide maintenance support services for the city's 75km driverless metro network.

SAUDI Railways Organisation (SRO) has awarded Talgo a contract worth around €200m to supply and maintain six 13-car diesel trains for Riyadh – Dammam services.

MEDINA Metro Development Authority (MMDA) has selected a consortium of Egis and Systra to carry out design studies for the planned 95km three-line metro network in the Saudi holy city of Medina.

Oman Rail is set to make huge strides on its inaugural railway project in 2015 as its first civil works contracts are awarded and construction gets underway. Kevin Smith reports from Muscat on progress so far.

QATARI Diar Vinci Construction (QDVC), which is carrying out construction of the four-line light rail network in the new Qatari city of Lusail, has awarded Thales a contract to deliver an integrated supervision, telecommunications, security and automatic fare collection system for the network.

The GCC member states are pushing ahead with plans to develop an integrated railway network between Oman and Kuwait. Kevin Smith reports from the GCC Metro and Rail conference in Muscat where the leading lights in the GCC railway industry gathered to discuss progress and the challenges facing this mammoth project.

METRO Jeddah, which was set up in March 2013 to implement an entire public transport network in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, involving metro, light rail, rail, buses and water taxis, will hold a project briefing day for consultants, contractors and suppliers in Jeddah on March 30.

ONE of the first Siemens Avenio LRVs for Qatar's Education City light rail line has been transferred from Siemens' Simmering plant in Vienna to the nearby Rail Tec Arsenal climatic chamber for testing.

ETIHAD Rail, the developer and operator of the UAE's national railway network, has officially handed over the operations control centre in Mirfa to Etihad Rail DB, a joint venture between Etihad Rail and DB Schenker.

OMAN Rail has received bids from 11 consortia for the civil works contract for the first phase of its railway network, a 207km link from Sohar to Buraimi on the UAE border in the north of the sultanate, which makes up Oman's section of the GCC railway network.