DUBAI, April 12 – France\’s Alstom Transport and RATP have set up a joint venture aimed at developing a driverless "metro for the 21st century," the firms announced on Tuesday.
The Metrolab project "will focus on designing the new automated metro for the 21st century, for new lines and existing lines," they said in a statement at an international public transport conference in Dubai.
"We hope to show the preliminary results of the research by 2013, with the prototype of a new driverless metro," RATP head Pierre Mongin said in Dubai, which opened its own metro in September 2009.
"Our objective will be to provide public transport authorities with turnkey solutions for all their mobility requirements," he said.
Metrolab has a "promising future because many cities in the world are looking to improve the capacity of their metro," Alstom Transport CEO Philippe Mellier said.
Automated metros are the "only solution to increase (metro) capacity."
