Qatar Railways Company (QRail) is evaluating proposals for the contract to provide project management services on the Doha metro scheme.

Firms were invited to submit bids for the contract at the end of last year. The winning bidder will work with the US’ Parsons Brinckerhoff, which is the strategic programme manager for the $35bn Qatar Integrated Rail Programme that includes the metro.

In mid-April, Qrail invited contractors to bid for five major construction packages for the metro. Four groups were invited to bid for tunnel packages and an additional group was chosen to bid for the two major stations planned.

The rail company has prequalified 18 consortiums and has placed the prequalifiers into five different groups containing a maximum of eight consortiums. The consortiums will bid against the other prequalified firms for the contract specific to that package. The first four tunnelling packages are for the Red Line North, Red Line South, Green Line and the Golden Line.

The station package consists of the two major terminals planned for the Msheireb Downtown Doha development and Education City.

Qrail also recently received bids from four consortiums for the initial enabling works package. The enabling works will include site facilities, civil structures and removing utilities. The enabling works will be carried out in preparation for the tunnelling and major stations packages.

The 300 kilometre-long Doha Metro will consist of four lines: Red Line, Gold Line, Green Line and Blue Line. The rail project will have 80 stations by the time it is completed. The metro will link the New Doha International Airport (NDIA) to the centre of Doha and will connect a number of the stadiums that will be used for the 2022 World Cup.