The Department of Public Enterprise is to decide by the end of this month which of three competing multinational transport operators will get the franchise to run Dublin's Luas light rail lines.
Worth about €100 million over five years from 2003, when the two lines serving Tallaght and Sandyford are due to open, the contract will be awarded on the basis of criteria laid down by the Department when tenders were sought last year.
The front-runner for the Luas franchise is believed to be Connex, a subsidiary of the French conglomerate Vivendi. It runs light rail systems in Bordeaux, Rouen, Barcelona, Stockholm and Sydney, and a commuter rail network in Melbourne.
Last month, Connex announced that it would lay off almost 100 staff and cut services in Melbourne in the face of anticipated losses of €40 million over the next three years, largely due to problems with automatic ticketing.
The other two contenders for the Luas franchise are Transdev, which operates most of the urban tramway systems in France, and First Group, which runs bus and rail services in Britain.
Transdev, part of the Caisse des Depots group, has extensive experience in public-private partnerships (PPPs) and urban mass transit systems, while First Group is Britain's largest bus operator and also holds three regional rail franchises.
To promote PPPs in transport here, the Railway Procurement Agency (RPA) has been established on a statutory footing, with Mr Donal Mangan, the Luas project director, as chief executive. Its main role will be to procure light rail and metro projects.
The RPA will take over the operations and responsibilities of the Light Rail Project Office, finally removing it from the ambit of CIÉ. This is seen as a crucial first step towards the establishment of PPPs in the public transport sector here.
Mr Mangan said he was very pleased with progress on the Luas project. Some 85 per cent of the utility diversions from its track-bed had been completed and the way was now clear for track-laying to start "over the coming weeks".
Dire predictions that the city would "grind to a halt" because of the preparatory works for Luas had not turned out to be true, he said.
The contract for track-laying and electrical installations along the two Luas lines has been awarded to AMB, a joint venture comprising Ansaldo Transporti, MVM Rail and Ballast Nedam. These works are expected to take two years.
