RIYADH – The Royal Commission for Riyadh City announced the completion of the construction and civil works of the Riyadh Metro project while the overall completion of the project has reached 92 percent. Hossam Al-Qurashi, advisor at the commission, made the remarks after making inspection tour of one of the trains that is on trial run. Speaking to Al-Arabiya channel, Al-Qurashi said Riyadh Metro took delivery of more than 180 trains and they are on trial run. The experimental operation of the trains has reached advanced stages, during which the trains had crossed about 2 million kilometers on all tracks, he said. The Riyadh electric train or the Riyadh Metro, is part of the King Abdulaziz Public Transport Project, which consists of trains and buses. He said that preparations are underway to start operation of buses in the city. They will start receiving passengers during the end of the first quarter of 2022, he said. Al-Qurashi said the Riyadh Metro is one of the giant projects in the world. It includes 85 railway stations, apart from six major metro lines that have been established to cover the capital city of Riyadh from all directions. There will also be a network of buses and all these cover an area of 1800 km. He said that 80 percent of the works of railway stations and 350 km of rail roads across the city have been completed and it took 40,000 working hours for the completion. The project will be instrumental in bringing down the number of car trips by approximately 250,000 trips per day, and saving around 400,000 liters of fuel per day, and thus cutting down the percentage of carbon emissions.
