Transport: Thales wins two contracts in Latin America

Thales has been selected on the occasion of the construction of two new Metro lines in Latin America, at Panama City and Santo Domingo. These contracts confirm Thales’s position as leader in the transport systems field.

Supervision and telecommunications for the Metro of Panama

The Alstom/Thales/Cim-Tso/Sofratesa Consortium has been selected to supply train control systems for the first Metro line of Panama City. In this framework, Thales will carry out the supervision and the telecommunications for the line. This line, 13.7km in length of which 7.2km are tunnels and 6.5km are viaducts, will be punctuated by 13 stations and will link Los Andes in the north of the city with the Albrook district in the south. It will be operational from late 2013. With 1.7 million inhabitants, Panama is the most modern city and the most commercially active in the region. The new Metro will improve traffic flow in the capital.

Thales at the heart of the transport system of Santo Domingo’s line 2

For Santo Domingo, the Dominican operator OPRET (Oficina Para el Reordenamiento del Transporte – Office for the Reorganisation of Transport) has awarded a contract for the construction of the second line of the Santo Domingo Metro to the “Siemens/Thales/Cim-Tso/Sofratesa Consortium. In the framework of this contract, Thales will supply its entire Transport package including the systems for communication, supervision, signalling and ticketing. 21 km long, the line will eventually have 20 stations and will cross Santo Domingo from East to West and from Los Alcarrizos to San Luis. The line will take on the daily transportation of around 400,000 people and will meet line 1, which is already equipped with the Thales supervision, telecommunications, security and ticketing systems. The Metro of the city of Santo Domingo, capital of the Dominican Republic, is part of an important national plan to improve transport. The first line aimed to remedy vehicle congestion. Line 2, as well as the 4 planned additional lines will complete the series. “These two contracts consolidate the strong position of Thales in the transport field in Latin America, where it already has a good reputation for its work on the Metros of Caracas, Santiago de Chile, Santo Domingo and the sub-urban line in Mexico” said Cesak Kuberek, Thales VP in Latin America. “Today, our know-how is widely recognised and enables us to work on the most modern Metros in the world.”