The bidders are Hyder Consulting, Mott MacDonald, both UK-based, US-based Parsons Brinckerhoff and the joint venture of US-based Parsons International and France’s Systra.

The project involves preparing designs for an 11-kilometre extension that is expected to have five stations running from Al-Jadaf to International City. It will cross the creek on the planned sixth crossing and interconnect with the planned blue line that will run along Emirates road. It will also connect with bus and marine transport terminals.

The Dubai Rapid Link (DURL) consortium was awarded the AED4.1bn ($1.1bn) contract for the first phase of the green line in 2006. The contract was placed as an option to the AED12.5bn contract awarded to DURL in June 2005 for the red line.

The works for the green line are now under way and involve the construction of the 20-kilometre line running in a loop from Dubai International Airport through Deira and Bur Dubai to Rashidiya.

The DURL consortium is led by Japan's Mitsubishi Corporation and includes Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Obayashi Corporation and Kajima Corporation, all of Japan; and Turkey's Yapi Merkezi. France's Systra and the US-based Parsons International is the engineer (MEED 16:4:08).