From Transit & Urban Tramways – Alstom and Dalkia win five-year, CAD $41.7 million, Luas (Dublin’s LRT) extension

There has been much ‘bumf’ in local blogs that light rail is expensive to maintain, even more expensive to maintain than metro. The following news item from T & UT gives a good example of theAi??Ai??annual operating costs of a modern light rail system. Dublin’s LUAS LRT does operate at a profit, even after paying its debt (bank) servicing charges and the operating authority has signed a five year CAD $41.7 million maintenance contract with Alstom & Dalkia, even though the transit system will expand by almost 13 km. during the course of the contract! $41.17 million over five years means that the annual maintenance costs of Dublin’s LUAS LRT is about $8.23 million a year, far less than any metro system in existence today, including both Vancouver’s RAV/Canada Line and SkyTrain’s Expo and Millennium Lines!

Ai??Ai??Alstom and Dalkia win five-year Luas extension

Ireland’s Railway Procurement Agency has awarded a five-year extension to Alstom and Dalkia’s infrastructure maintenance contract for Dublin’s Luas light rail system.

Alstom and Dalkia have maintained the infrastructure since Luas’ opening in 2004 and the new five-year contract that begins on 1 October is worth EUR30m(CAD $41.17m) Alstom EUR24m (CAD $37.75) and Dalkia EUR6m (CAD $9.45m)Ai??Ai??and has an option for a further five years, depending on performance.

During the course of the contract the Luas system will extend by almost 13km with extensions of the Red Line to Docklands (approx 4km) and Saggart (1.7km) due to open in late 2009 and early 2010 respectively. The Green Line extension to Cherrywood (7.2km) is also due to open in 2010.