SARAWAK Metro has received two bids for the Kuching Urban Transportation System (KUTS) System Package 1 tender.

The tender includes the supply of hydrogen-powered rolling stock, depot equipment and maintenance vehicles, signalling and control system, and automatic platform gates. The trains for the first metro network in Sarawak, a Malaysian state on the island of Borneo, will be guided using an optical system and will operate at Grade of Automation 2 (GoA 2).

A bid has been submitted by a joint venture comprising CRRC, China, and CHEC Construction (M) and KACC Construction, Malaysia, while the second has been submitted by a joint venture of Malaysian companies EPR (Kuching), Global Rail and Mobilus, a partnership between Ireka and CRRC Urban Traffic. Each bidder was required to include a partner from Sarawak. A third joint venture that had expressed interest in taking part in the tender did not submit a bid by the closing date of March 31.

The contract is expected to be awarded by the middle of the year.

The tender was launched after Sarawak Metro, a wholly owned subsidiary of Sarawak Economic Development Corporation (SEDC), ran a rolling stock vendor registration exercise in the middle of 2021, which received an encouraging response from international manufacturers. The tender for the contract was issued earlier this year.

Sarawak Metro announced it will also call for tenders for System Package 2 by the second quarter of 2022. This package comprises the communication system, automatic fare collection, information technology system, supervisory control and data acquisition, computerised maintenance management system and operation control centre.

The development of the KUTS Project will take place in phases, with Phase 1 involving the construction of two lines; the 28km Samarahan Line, which runs from Rembus to the city centre, and the 24km Serian Line from 12th Mile Kuching-Serian Expressway to the Isthmus.

Passenger service is due to be launched in stages from the fourth quarter of 2025.

For detailed data on rail projects around the world, subscribe to IRJ Pro.