International city transportation developer RAPT Dev has been awarded the contract to develop an automated metro system for Belgrade and will operated three lines of the city system in what has been described as being Serbia’s “largest infrastructure project to date.’
The company stated in mid-January that it was awarded an “early operator assistance” contract to operate the system in Belgrade, with this planned to be launched in 2028, as cited by Intelligenttransport.com. However, the company will begin supporting city metro operations as of March 1, 2023.
That said, this is hardly RAPT’s first large city project. This news follows an earlier announcement that RATP Group would partner with French transport specialist Societe de transport de Montreal (STM) to transition bus stations and vehicles to electric in Paris.
“The RATP’s experience with modernizing its bus garages to house electric buses and operating said vehicles, as well as the rich history of collaboration between the two transit agencies, made the RATP a partner of choice for us,” said Pascal Renaud, STM Research director for Electrification Projects, as cited by Intelligentransport.com.
RAPT Dev is a 100 percent subsidiary of RATP Group. Although it has a focus on Paris, it is present in 13 other countries, including Algeria, Belgium, Egypt, Hong Kong SAR of China, Italy, Morocco, the Philippines, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
Photo of Belgrade by Marek Slusarczyk, CC BY 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons.
