Saudi Arabia’s Public Transport Authority (PTA) has extended the deadline for  firms to express interest and respond to a prequalification questionnaire (PQQ) to 23 February for the contract to provide operations and maintenance (O&M) services for the kingdom’s mainline railway networks.

The original date for submissions was 19 January.

The scheme comprises the initial phase of privatising the kingdom’s railway sector.

According to the PQQ document seen by MEED, companies may request to be prequalified for either one or multiple modules of the privatisation process.

The O&M services sought are split into three modules, namely infrastructure management, passenger operations and freight operations.

The request for proposals (RFP) is expected to be released in the first quarter of 2018.

“It is the intention of the PTA to request RFP participants to submit a single proposal for the full scope,” the document said. “Companies prequalified for individual modules will be encouraged to form consortiums along with other prequalified companies for the rest of the modules.”

Specifically, the scope of works potentially includes the operation of freight and passenger services, management and maintenance of passenger stations, management and maintenance of dry ports, maintenance of rolling stock and signalling and telecommunications infrastructure.