CAF has been awarded a new contract from Metropolitan Area Transport Ltd, Helsinki City Transport, and Länsimetro Ltd to modernise the entire signalling system on the Helsinki metro.
The work will see the full implementation of CAF’s CBTC (Communications-Based Train Control) system, OPTIO, across the city’s network.
The contract, worth 60 million EUR, will also see the supply of the control centre and upgrade of the existing fleet of M300 trains – which were previously also provided by CAF. These will be retrofitted to include all necessary on-board CBTC systems.
Installation of CAF’s OPTIO system will allow the metro network to begin operating in automatic mode (GoA2), with unattended automatic return operations (GoA3) possible at the ends of the lines.
Spanning circa 43 kilometres; Helsinki’s metro network connects the city with the neighbouring city of Espoo. It was first inaugurated in 1982 and features 30 stations, serving over 78 million passengers per year.
The modernisation project aims to improve reliability, increase operational automation and, eventually, increase train frequency to meet the higher demand forecast for the coming years.
Elsewhere; CAF has been contracted to supply units for the high-speed line connecting Oslo to its airport, trams for cities such as Stockholm, Lund and regional train fleets for Swedish operators Transitio AB and SJ AB.
