TURKEY: Mersin municipality has formally awarded the contract for construction of the city’s first underground metro line.
The winner was a consortium of US company Dillingham Construction International and Turkey’s Kıska-Kom, which submitted the lowest bid of TL3·379bn.
Bids had also been submitted by a consortium of Doğuş, Ticaret, Yapı Merkezi and Sanayi (TL3·810bn) and Cengiz (TL4·122bn).
The award of the contract follows five months of negotiations with the competing bidders.
The 13·4 km line will run from the main railway station to Mezitli in the city centre, with nine intermediate stops.
The municipality has authorised the issuing of a TL900m bond to help cover the cost of the project, and said construction would begin as soon as possible.
The contract includes the construction and fitting out of 8 070 m of cut-and-cover tunnel, 4 880 m of single bore tunnels, the stations and also associated road and landscaping works.
The winning consortium will then maintain the line for the first 24 months of operation.
The municipality has also announced that planning work will soon be completed for two light rail lines to connect the railway station with the university and main hospital.
