Hitachi Rail has won the contract to operate and maintain the autonomous metro at Princess Nora bint Abdul Rahman University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

The university is the largest women’s university in the world, with 60,000 enrolled students.

The contract, worth 72.5 million euros, has a runtime of three years. Due to the size of the campus, an 11.5km automated guideway transit system was developed. In total, the system comprises four elevated lines connecting 14 stations. There are 22 ten-car automated metro trains with a capacity of 110 passengers. They have a top speed of 60km/h.

Hitachi Rail to operate and maintain the metro at the world’s largest women’s university in Riyadh

© HITACHI RAIL

Under this contract, Hitachi Rail will operate the entire autonomous metro system and maintain both the trains and the infrastructure, including the stations, mechanical and electrical systems, the depot and the viaduct. Hitachi Rail was also responsible for constructing the autonomous railway, a project it completed in May 2011.

The trains in this metro system use the same driverless technology that is used for the Copenhagen Metro, which started carrying passengers in 2002 and was also built by Hitachi.