Jordan’s Greater Amman Municipality (GAM) is preparing to tender three packages before the end of 2016 for the country’s bus rapid transit (BRT) scheme.

The tenders will include one contract each for the BRT terminal, a traffic interchange and a city interchange.

The civil work schemes will be funded by France’s Agence Francaise de Developpement (AFD). The projects are estimated to have a budget of $170m, according to Riyad Kharabsheh, BRT project manager at GAM.

The tender for the rolling stock is expected in the first quarter of 2017. Kharaebsheh says they are expecting the potential rolling stock contractor or contractors to invest in the scheme.

The executive said the long-planned light rail transit (LRT) for Amman and its neighbouring cities remains a national priority, although no timeline has been specified in terms of the procurement process.

“There remains a huge potential for an intercity light rail system,” Kharabsheh tells MEED. ”Amman and the neighbouring cities need it, and need is determined not by the government but by the population. We still don’t have the right arrangement between municipalities and authorities to allow this project to advance to the procurement stage, but we are exploring options.”

Kharabsheh was part of a delegation from Jordan that recently visited China to explore options for potential partnership. “We wanted to ascertain their capacity to finance or implement future projects… such as the intercity light rail,” he says.