Moscow Metro to Relax Secrecy for Foreign Investors

The Moscow authorities are planning to lift the veil of secrecy from the Russian capital’s subway in order to lure foreign investors and modernize the system, Nezavisimaya Gazeta daily reported on Tuesday.

The Moscow government intends to announce a tender to modernize the metro and has committed to relaxing the secrecy surrounding the design of the system, which doubles as a civil defense facility, the Moscow Transport and Road Infrastructure Department told the paper.

Foreign companies have pledged to offer competitive services and prices, greater speed and comfort and radically reduced noise levels compared with domestically built cars, which now cost as much as imports, according to the Moscow Mayor’s Office.

The 150-km increase in routes announced by Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, will require expanding the subway’s rolling stock in addition to ongoing replacement of existing cars.

Today, the Moscow metro needs to replace about 4,000 subway cars, Sobyanin said.

A major obstacle for the use of foreign equipment in the Moscow metro is the regime of secrecy but the Moscow authorities are ready to make concessions, said Tatiana Malashenkova, deputy head of the Moscow Transport and Road Infrastructure Department.

“The participation of foreign contractors in subway development will require a qualitative change in the approach to designing and approval. Under the existing norms, the metropolitan is both a means of transport and a civil defense facility and therefore, a considerable part of design documentation is secret,” she said.

“The involvement of foreign contractual organizations will require a radical review of the normative base.”

The German engineering giant Siemens is ready to offer Moscow comfortable and economic trains with low operating costs and even accommodate the production of new metro cars in Russia, Siemens Rail Transport Systems Director Dmitry Matsenov said.

“Comfort for passengers will be raised using ultra-modern external and internal designs of subway cars, the optimal width and number of doors for quick and comfortable entry and exit and the location of seats, including jump seats,” he said.

Foreign companies have pledged to offer competitive services and prices, greater speed and comfort and radically reduced noise levels compared with domestically built cars, which now cost as much as imports, according to the Moscow Mayor’s Office.

 

 

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