Mecca Municipality is still carrying out studies for its proposed Mecca Mass Rail Transit (MMRT) project.

In August 2011, Al-Balad al-Ameen, the development arm of Mecca Municipality, said it expected to invite expressions of interest for the construction tenders for the project within the third quarter of last year. It is not clear when it now plans to invite expressions of interest.

“We have no news at this time [as] the whole project is not ready for tendering,” says a source at Mecca Mass Rail Transit Company, a subsidiary of Al-Balad al-Ameen.

Al-Balad al-Ameen is also still deciding how many public-private partnership (PPP) contracts will be involved in the project.

The UK’s Ernst & Young and law firm Ashurst are the transaction advisers on the scheme. The MMRT project will comprise four lines that will run for 113 kilometres around Mecca once complete and will have 24 stations. The project is scheduled to be complete by 2017 and is aimed at accommodating the increasing number of pilgrims that visit Mecca each year. Mecca’s own population is also forecast to increase to 3 million by 2035, from its existing population of about 1.5 million.