Maputo, 17 Jul (AIM) – The Mozambican Transport Ministry has awarded a consortium of two companies a feasibility study for the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) urban mobility project, to be implemented in the Greater Maputo Metropolitan Area, worth about three million US dollars.
The Greater Maputo Metropolitan Area covers Maputo, the adjacent city of Matola and the neighbouring districts of Boane and Marracuene.
The investment is part of the 250 million dollars made available by the World Bank as a grant to improve urban mobility in the Greater Maputo area.
The Ministry of Transport, implementing the project through the Maputo Metropolitan Agency (AMM), believes that the complexity of the work requires a thorough study, involving engineers and technicians from various areas to calculate the real costs of the project.
For this purpose, the project was awarded to two companies, namely the Dutch consultancy firm Royal Haskoning HHV, and Integrated Transport Planning, which is based in South Africa.
According to the coordinator of the BRT project, Fátima Artur, in an interview with the independent daily “O Pais”, the companies have already been on the ground since last May and should, in 12 months, complete the feasibility study which should include, in addition to the feasibility of the central lanes, the outline of multi-purpose signaling systems that will be controlled from a data center, 10 intermodal terminals, and security cameras on buses and terminals.
“This is a detailed study and because of that it will take a year and there is a team of consultants working on it. Right now, we have estimates of the construction cost of the project. The consultancy will bring the real costs”, explained Fátima Artur.
This is the first Bus Rapid Transit solution in the country and will be implemented on a 22-kilometer section of a line dedicated to the BRT buses, leaving from Workers’ Square in downtown Maputo City, passing through Guerra Popular, Acordos de Lusaka and Julius Nyerere avenues.
(AIM)
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