Thales wins telecommunications contract for Line 17 of São Paulo’s monorail

Thales, in collaboration with local partner T’Trans, will provide Companhia do Metropolitano de São Paulo with telecommunications systems for Line 17 of the São Paulo monorail.

Key points

• Thales will deliver an integrated telecommunications solution over 22 months.
• Line 17 will be an important link between Congonhas International Airport and the city’s metro network, serving 252,000 passengers/day.
• Thales’s sixth transportation contract in Brazil since 2010.

Line 17 is a 17.7 kilometre-long monorail line, which will connect Congonhas International Airport to the metro rail network. The line will serve 252,000 passengers a day with trains that will have headways of 200 seconds. Line 17 passes through the southern and south-western parts of the city, beginning at Jabaquara terminus station (on Line 1 of the metro) and terminating at Morumbi station (on Line 4).

Thales’s integrated telecommunications systems for Line 17 comprise Master Clock, Passenger Information and CCTV systems, as well as Transmission and Telephony subsystems. The telecommunications solution is based on a security and surveillance platform (Thales EPS SW) that enables operators to display, record and search video images - providing decision support for a wide range of operational scenarios. The Passenger Information system (Thales APIS SW) generates and distributes traffic-related information in real-time to both the operator and its users.

The implementation of this project will take 22 months.

Furthermore, the monorail is currently being equipped with Thales’s Seltrac® CBTC (Communications-Based Train Control) system and will therefore be equipped with an integrated solution, including signalling, telecommunications and security. With this integration, the operator will benefit from lower operation and maintenance costs. The selection of a combination of Thales solutions is also a demonstration of the trusting relationship that continues to exist between Thales and Companhia do Metropolitano de São Paulo, since Thales deployed the first CBTC system in Brazil, in 2011.

This is the sixth transportation contract won by Thales in Brazil since 2010, with prior contracts won for the monorail in Manaus, the Santos tramway and recently, the Salvador metro. Thales has been growing exponentially in the transportation sector in Brazil and intends to expand its footprint further in order to contribute to the modernisation of Latin America’s rail transportation infrastructure.