Bahrain will make a decision on how to proceed with the kingdom’s proposed light rail network once a nine-month study is completed at the end of September.

Spanish consultant Idom Consulting Engineering Architecture started work for the Ministry of Transport and Telecommunications on the light rail study in January this year. It covers a study of the existing transport system in Bahrain, preparing plans for a proposed network and phases, selecting the best technology to be used for the different phases, the preliminary design of first phase of the network, the cost of implementing phase one, and the best method to procure phase one.

“By the end of September we will have all this information. For me as the Minister of Transport and Telecommunications I then need to take this outcome and sell the business case,” Minister of Transport and Telecommunications Kamal bin Ahmed Mohammed told MEED. “I am convinced, but I need to convince others especially as there are limited financial resources. We need to have ways to convince people that this is the only way to resolve the transportation issue in Bahrain.”

The light rail network is the second phase of a project to overhaul Bahrain’s public transport system. The first phase was implemented in 2014 when the ministry awarded a 10-year concession to operate the bus network to Bahrain Public Transport Company, which is a joint venture of the UK’s National Express, through its subsidiary, NX Bahrain Bus Company and the local Ahmed Mansoor al-A’Ali.

After signing the concession, Bahrain’s bus network covers 75 per cent of areas with buses were as it used to be only 30 per cent. For waiting times, passengers used to wait for an hour for a bus and now they wait a maximum of half hour.

“We started with phase one of developing public transportation with buses. After 18 months to two years of implementing phase one of the buses project we know we have done a good job, because the average daily users used to be 13,000 per day on average while today we have an average of 36-37,000 per day. During weekends it reaches to 55,000 users and during Eid it reached 72,000 per day,” said the minister.