Siemens wins Bangalore Metro Line-3’s CBTC Signalling Contract
October 13 – Update: BMRCL awarded Siemens a Rs 247.71 crore contract on September 24, 2020.
April 24 – Original Post:
A consortium of Siemens India Ltd. – Siemens AG today emerged as the lowest bidder for providing the communications-based train control (CBTC) signalling solution for Bangalore Metro’s 19.143 km Yellow Line (Line-3 / Reach 5) connecting RV Road – Silkboard – Electronic City – Bommansandra.
Tenders for this international competitive bidding (ICB) contract of the 73.95 km Phase 2 project were invited in October 2019. Here are the financial bid values, unverified at this time, submitted by all 3 bidders. BMRCL’s estimate is unknown.
| Firm | Bid |
| Siemens | 30 million Euros |
| Hitachi (Ansaldo STS) | 38.6 million Euros |
| Alstom | 40 million Euros |
April 29 Update: Naveen Menezes on Twitter was able to get the exact bid amounts in INR from BMRCL
With CBTC signalling in place, BMRCL will be capable of operating its 15 CRRC Nanjing Puzhen trains on Bengaluru’s new Yellow Line with high frequencies and headways of 1.5 minutes (90 seconds) with unattended train operations (UTO) or driverless operations in the future, if desired.
Alstom’s U200 Distance-to-Go (DTG) signalling solution on Bengaluru’s Line-1 (Purple Line) and Line-2 (Green Line), built in Phase 1 and being extended in Phase 2, can support train services with a minimum headway of 2.5 minutes. Prior to the suspension of operations due to COVID-19, BMRCL was operating trains with a headway of 4 minutes during peak hours and 10 minutes during non-peak hours.
Here’s a nice video comparing the old Distance-to-Go signalling (Fixed Block) with CBTC signalling:
Like that video? See another one from NYC’s Subway system here.
If no issues arise during financial evaluation, then Siemens will be issued a letter of award in the coming weeks and enter its 6th city in India. Prior to this, they’ve won signalling contracts for parts of Delhi & Kolkata’s metro systems and the entire Chennai Phase 1, Gurgaon RMRG Line-1 and Nagpur Phase 1 metro systems.
For more updates, check out the Bangalore section of The Metro Rail Guy!
– TMRG
BMRCL has a wicked sense of humor. CBTC’s potential will be irrelevant if only 15 trains service a 19 km line.
Yes 15 seems less compared to 50 trains for 42 km phase 1. The standard is 1 train for 1 km double track.
The number of Trains will definitely increase in future. While selecting the signalling system, the BMRC probably kept the expected passenger volumes in 2030s in mind when 1.5 minutes headway may be required. When passengers come, new trains will also come (after five years if BMRC’s competence is factored in).
Even Delhi Metro Pink and Magenta Lines have CBTC Signalling but not the frequency to require CBTC.
Delhi Metro Blue and Yellow lines do 2-3 minutes (personal experience and not official data) frequency in peak hours just fine with fixed block signalling.
According to the video (which was very helpful) CBTC technology has existed for quite a long time. Any reason BMRCL didn’t use it for phase 1 lines?
If I recall correctly, Phase 1’s DPR was prepared in 2003 (?) and finalized in 2005 (?). At that time CBTC was in its infancy – only a few systems around the world had it.