Thales and Kapsch win contract for turnkey project on Bulgarian railway line

As leader of the consortium, Thales has signed a contract with the Bulgarian railway infrastructure company NRIC to provide electronic signalling and telecommunication technology for the Sofia-Plovdiv railway line. Kapsch CarrierCom will deliver the GSM-R technology within this project. The entire contract has a value of worth € 35 million.

Thales and Kapsch will cooperate in implementing the entire solution on the 133 km of the Sofia-Plovdiv railway line, part of the International Rail Corridor IV from Dresden to Istanbul crossing Bulgaria.Thales will deploy electronic interlockings for five stations, including outdoor facilities, ETCS (European Train Control System) Level 1 trackside equipment and CheckPoint solutions (trackside train condition monitoring). The GSM-R access will be set up by Kapsch CarrierCom with delivery of dispatcher extensions, CAB radios and handhelds. Thomas Schöpf, COO of Kapsch CarrierCom about the advantages: “With these solutions, the line will support an increase in train speed and higher train frequencies, significantly increasing line capacity.“

“The Thales centre of competence in Austria for interlockings and ETCS supplies this forward-looking technology and Kapsch is a world’s leading GSM-R specialist. Jointly, we were able to further expand the line as part of the International Rail Corridor IV, where we already have been chosen for the 128 km Plovdiv-Svilengrad line.” says Dr. Alfred Veider, CEO Thales Austria GmbH.

Thales can build on valuable expertise gained by having deployed the very first electronic interlockings in the Bulgarian market, with 5 stations already in operation. With the Sofia-Plovdiv project, Thales not only underlines its market leadership in Bulgaria and its competence in turnkey projects, but also completes the large signalling footprint in Europe. Additionally, this project creates a long-term perspective for providing the complete Bulgarian railway network with electronic signalling and train control technology also in the future.