Alstom to power Colombia tram for $6.7M

Alstom Transportation, as leader of the consortium UT Alstom-Sytecsa, has been selected by Metro de Medellín, in the context of a public tender, to provide the power system of the new Ayacucho Tram currently under construction in Medellín, Colombia.

The Ayacucho Green Corridor Tram, which is due to be commissioned in mid-2015, is 2.6 miles long with a 12% slope, and includes nine stations. Alstom’s scope of the contract is worth over $6.7 million.

Medellín’s existing transportation system includes a metro system (63 stations), two metro lines, three cable lines and two bus lines. After 17 years of operation, it has counted more than 2 billion trips (320,000 passengers per day) and served six municipalities, covering 33.4 miles. The project is part of Metro de Medellín’s Master Plan for the Metropolitan Region, which comprises several actions to be performed between 2006 and 2030. It aims to offer greater mobility to passengers and a multimodal transport system, changing the relationship of the population with urban mobility.

Alstom’s scope includes the project management, engineering, sourcing of traction equipment (medium voltage transformers, DC equipment and control), a center for distribution and three traction substations with rectification, as well as the testing and control of the substations, which will provide electric power to the trams. These activities will be managed by Alstom Spain with the support of the company´s local team. Alstom’s consortium partner Sytecsa will be in charge of the installation on the site.

The trams that will run on the Ayacucho corridor are Translohr made by NTL, a company owned by Alstom and the Fonds Stratégique d’Investissement (French Strategic Investment Fund).