Alstom’s Citadis high-capacity tramway in the spotlight

Exterior view of the Alstom’s Citadis high-capacity tramway © Alstom Transport / Pauline Rey

On Saturday, 17 November 2012, Bernard Rivalta, President of the Transport Union of the Urban Area of Lyon (SYTRAL), Gérard Collomb, Senator and Mayor of Lyon, and Hubert Peugeot, Vice-President, Sales, Alstom Transport France, inaugurated the T5 tramway line serving the urban area of Lyon.

Exterior view of the Alstom’s Citadis high-capacity tramway © Alstom Transport / Pauline Rey

On the occasion, they unveiled two Alstom Citadis high-capacity trainsets, delivered in a record time of 16 months (compared with the usual average of 20 months). The trams will run on the T3 tramway line starting in December 2012.

With the inauguration of Line 5, the urban area of Lyon now boasts a fleet of 85 Citadis tramways, the third largest in France, made up of 32- and 43-metre trainsets.

Alstom’s Citadis tramway offers a quality on board experience and optimal comfort thanks to an integral low floor, air-conditioning, video-surveillance systems and information conveyed via announcements and screens. One of the newly unveiled trainsets features a special outer covering developed by the designer Vincent Leroy – a French designer. The covering is based on the concept of the mirror trainset implemented in 2006 for the inauguration of the T3. The concept has been updated with chrome ellipses to express movement, speed and fluidity.

Citadis is helping to promote the economic dynamism of the French regions. The tramways for the urban area of Lyon are designed and assembled at the Alstom plant in La Rochelle. Other operations take part in the production process, including the Villeurbanne site with nearly 700 employees in charge of on-board information systems, as well as the Ornans site for motors, the Le Creusot site for bogies and the Tarbes site for electric and electronic traction equipment. Alstom Transport projects have generated 27,000 direct and indirect jobs with French suppliers: 80% of the company’s procurement is supplied by 4,600 firms located in France.

To date, more than 1,600 Citadis tramways have been sold to nearly 40 cities in the world. The trams have carried more than 4.7 billion passengers and demonstrated their reliability operating across more than 400 million kilometres.