São Paulo’s Line 17 driverless monorail will be equipped with the Thales SelTrac CBTC signalling solution

Vigilance can confirm that Thales has been selected by Andrade Gutierrez (AG) and CR Almeida to deliver its SelTrac Communications-Based Train Control (CBTC) signalling solution for Line 17 of the São Paulo metro. A source at Thales said the new line would be driverless and fully automatic. The first phase of implementation is planned to support the 2014 FIFA World Cup, with completion scheduled for August 2014, a record delivery time of just 27 months.

The source also said the new 18-km elevated line will be built by a consortium led by Andrade Gutierrez (AG) and including CR Almeida, Scomi and MPE Group, adding it is expected to carry 252,000 passengers a day.

“This is Thales’s first CBTC project in Brazil and we expect to win other projects to respond to the need to improve rail transportation infrastructure,” said Laurent Mourre, Thales Country Director in Brazil. “With more than 40 years of presence as a major supplier in the defence, aerospace and space sectors, we are now developing our position in the Brazilian transportation market with Thales’s state-of-the-art technologies.”

Continual innovation has made Thales’s CBTC technology the signalling solution of choice since it was first implemented in 1985. With this proven driverless train control technology, operators continue to benefit from low operation and maintenance costs and optimal life cycle costs, while passengers benefit from a smoother travel experience. To date, Thales has applied SelTrac to 54 projects in 31 cities worldwide, moving a total of 3 billion passengers per year.