SINGAPORE - The Land Transport Authority (LTA) has awarded a $136.8 million contract to Kawasaki Heavy Industries consortium to supply 12 new six-car trains for the North-south, East-west lines (NSEWL).
The 12 trains are the final batch of the 57 new trains that will be put into service from 2016 to 2019, according to a statement from the LTA.
The first of these 12 trains will arrive in Singapore in early-2018, and will undergo testing at the NSEWL depots before they are put into service around the middle of 2019.
These trains will be the first to feature tip-up seats that will provide additional flexibility in seat configuration onboard.
They will also have three rows of straphangers and triplicated grab-poles for standing passengers, and feature a dynamic route map display at the top of each door.
From the start of this year to 2019, 99 more trains will be added to the NSEWL, North East Line (NEL) and Circle Line (CCL) - 57 new trains for the NSEWL and 42 new trains for the CCL and NEL, increasing the overall train fleet size by close to 50 per cent.
For the CCL, 12 new trains would have joined the CCL's existing fleet of 40 trains by the end of 2015; while four new trains would also have been added to the NEL's fleet of 25 trains.
All the 42 new trains for the CCL and NEL would be fully deployed by the end of 2016.
Kawasaki has been supplying trains in the Japanese domestic market and handled overseas projects in New York and Washington. In Singapore, Kawasaki has supplied most of the trains on the NSEWL. The consortium is currently in progress of delivering 91 trains for the Thomson-East Coast Line.