City to launch transport tenders valued at close to $200 million
The city of Warsaw plans this year to launch tenders valued at up to zl. 800 million ($195 million) to bring transport up to speed in a bid to coax commuters back on line and ease congestion on roadways.
The general plan calls for buying new rolling stock and installing new traffic systems. Rolling stock, designed for passenger-load efficiency, and traffic signals that give priority to public transport will offer significant reductions in travel times, officials said.
At the beginning of the second quarter, the City Transportation Board (ZTM) is planning to open a zl. 670 million ($163.4 million) tender for new, low-floor trams. Signing with a supplier is hoped for by the end of summer, after which the trams must be delivered within 15 months.
Currently, there are several dozen semi low-floor trams in Warsaw, supplied by Alstom in the southwestern city of Chorzow, outside Katowice. These trams have been operating on Warsaw's rails for about two years.
The fleet of new trams set to roll on city streets by June will be completely low floor, said Professor Wojciech Suchorzewski of the Warsaw Polytechnic Institute, who is also a city transport consultant.
That should positively affect passenger load times, Suchorzewski said. Older trams with steps and narrow doorways take longer to load and unload passengers. "But if you have low-floor trams with many doors, it will be much shorter," he said.
"Low-floor trams are much more comfortable from the point of view of passengers," said Warsaw Vice-Mayor Olgierd Dziekonski, who oversees city transport issues.
Companies interested in the tram tender include Alstom, Bombardier and AdTranz, Dziekonski said. The number of trams to come out of the deal was difficult to estimate, he said. "It depends on the price," Dziekonski said.
In addition to new rolling stock, the city also plans to spend zl. 120 million ($29.26 million) on new equipment and installation to upgrade its traffic-management system. The new regime is called Caesar, a computerized traffic signal system that will coordinate surface circulation citywide.
"(Caesar) is looking at the minimization of total time lost," Suchorzewski said. The Caesar system also has the capacity to give both city trams and buses priority at traffic lights. Dwell times, the time spent standing still at a passenger stop, for trams now range from 40 seconds to longer than a minute.
"A tram has no priority at intersections," Suchorzewski said.
A tender to install the system will be held toward the end of the first quarter, with new traffic systems on line in two to three years, Dziekonski said. "It is a process that will start at the end of this year, I hope," he said.
Equipment for Caesar carries a price tag of zl. 70 million ($17 million). The second part will be a zl. 40 million-zl. 50 million ($9.75 million-$12 million) system called Intelligent Management that will be installed on buses and trams to allow vehicles to communicate with signals.
Also under consideration is an additional tramline running from Wilanow in southern Warsaw to Bemowo in northwestern Warsaw.
"It is a typical tramline with a new, high standard," Dziekonski said. For now, though, it is unclear how much the new line will cost or how costs for construction will be financed. "Realistically, there will have to be some sort of engagement with the public sector," Dziekonski said.
In February, the city is scheduling to launch a zl. 1.2 million ($292,000) tender for a consulting company that will conduct feasibility studies for the new tramline.
