Saudi Arabia has restarted its plans to build the Jeddah metro, as it floated a preliminary design consultancy tender for the Blue Line component of the project.

MEED understands that the tender was floated in early January. Firms have been given until March to submit their proposals.

The Blue Line will stretch from King Abdulaziz International Airport and connect with the Haramain High-Speed Railway station.

The total length of this line will be 35 kilometres (km), along with 15 stations.

Plans for a Jeddah Metro were first publicly floated in the early 2010s, and were formally packaged with a wider “Jeddah Public Transport” programme around 2013–2014.

In 2014, French engineering firm Systra was appointed to complete the preliminary engineering for the Jeddah Metro, as MEED reported at that time.

In the same year, US-based engineering firm Aecom was awarded a SR276m ($74m) contract to provide pre-programme management consultancy services.

Under its 18-month contract, Aecom was supposed to provide staff to support the preliminary planning and design work for various phases of the metro project.

This was followed by the appointment of the UK-based architectural firm Foster & Partners in 2015 to design the metro stations.

The project then stalled as government spending priorities were reset and major capital programmes were reviewed due to the fall in oil prices in 2015, with the metro’s scope, cost and delivery model coming under reassessment.

The early concept designs envisaged a multi-line network integrated with buses and, later, other city-scale mobility upgrades.

According to Jeddah Transport Company’s website, the scheme comprises 81 stations and 197 trains serving over 161km. The whole network will have four lines:

• Orange Line: A 44.8km line running along Al-Madinah Road and Old Makkah Road, with 29 stops including one at Obhur Bridge.
• Blue Line: A 35km line running from King Abdulaziz International Airport to Haramain High-Speed Railway station having 15 stations.
• Green Line: A 17 km running through the city centre, from the downtown area to Al-Haramain railway station, with 9 stops.
• Red Line: A 59.7 km line running from King Abdullah Stadium north to old Makkah Street through King Abdulaziz Road and King Abdullah Road, with 25 stops.