Thales JV in China – Thales SEC Transport (TST) has recently been contracted by Zhengzhou Metro to provide its innovative TSTCBTC ®2.0 signalling system for the city’s Metro Line 6 Phase 1 project. This is the first signalling project that TST was awarded in Zhengzhou, which marks the company’s business footprint expanding to 15 cities within China’s mainland.

Zhengzhou, as the capital city of Henan Province and the core city of China’s Central Plains City Cluster, has a significant geographical advantage. The Zhengzhou Line 6 Phase 1 project is one of the key projects in the city’s urban rail transit construction, which will significantly enhance the urban mobility. The line runs from Jiayu Town station to Xiaoying station, with a total operational length of 39.2 km (2.8 km elevated, 36.4 km underground), crossing through 26 stations (one elevated and 25 underground), and including nine interchange stations. It will reinforce transportation links among the city’s Zhongyuan District, Erqi District and Zhengdong New District, while also expanding west to incorporate the Xingyang Donglin Lake District into the rail transit service area.

The project will be running on TSTCBTC ®2.0, the innovative signalling system developed by TST, with complete IPR (Intellectual Property Rights). With the revolutionary dual CBTC (Communication Based Train Control) architecture, the system aims to achieve zero interruptions to operations by creating a high level of redundancy and availability. It also significantly simplifies wayside equipment and reduces life cycle costs, thereby greatly facilitating maintenance.

The system’s high availability and reliability have been verified on the Shanghai Metro Line 5, the first metro line in China where operation, construction and renovation were fulfilled simultaneously. Moreover, Shanghai Metro Line 14, the GoA4 FAO (fully automatic operation) model line scheduled to enter into service in 2021, also selected TSTCBTC ®2.0 as its signalling system.