TWO new light rail lines have been inaugurated in Mostaganem, a port city and provincial capital in northwest Algeria, following completion of a project undertaken by a consortium of Alstom and Cosider under contracts awarded by Métro d’Alger (EMA).

While Cosider’s role in the contract covered carrying out the civil engineering works including track, catenary and traffic and installing colour light signals, Alstom supplied the telecommunications and signalling systems, the substations, ticketing systems and depot equipment.

Mostaganem is the seventh city in Algeria to operate the Alstom-designed Citadis low-floor LRVs, which, as with others supplied to cities in the country, have been manufactured by Cital, a joint venture of Alstom, EMA and Ferrovial of Spain, at its Annaba plant in northeast Algeria. The fleet in Mostaganem comprises 25 43.9m-long Citadis 402 LRVs.

The inauguration of the new light rail network took place on February 18 and was attended by Algeria’s minister of transport, Mr Kamel Beldjoud, and wali of Mostaganem, Mr Aissa Boulahia, as well as other senior local authority representatives.

Another view of two of the Mostaganem Tramway's Alstom-designed Citadis 402 LRVs. Photo credit: Alstom

The Mostaganem Tramway comprises a total of 14.5km of track with 24 stations, with the north-south Line T1 connecting Salamander Place in the north to the University of Kharouba in the south.  The east-west Line T2 connects the city’s mainline station in the east to Avanue Abane Ramdane bus station in the west.

Construction of the Mostaganem light rail system was originally begun in August 2013 by a consortium of Alstom and Isolux Corsán, Spain, under a €240m contract awarded by EMA, with completion scheduled for May 2015. However, delays caused by flooding and subsidence together with severe financial problems for Isolux Corsán caused progress to stall. Work on the project was subsequently restarted by the Alstom and Cosider consortium.

Ridership of the new light rail system is expected to be 10,000 passengers a day.

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