Morocco’s Casa Transports has awarded Turkey’s Yapi Merkezi an €83m ($94m) contract for the construction of Line 2 of the Casablanca tram line.

The line will feature 20 stations, with construction expected to take two-and-a-half years, according to a rail industry publication.

Line 2 will start where the western branch of Line 1 terminates, at Boulevard Anoual, to Ain Diab. This will extend the existing 31-kilometre-long tram line by 22.5km by late 2018 or early 2019, when construction is completed.

Yapi Merkezi was competing against four other bidding groups. The rest of the bidders included fellow Turkish contractor Makyol, a team comprising Colas Rail, Colas Morocco and GTR, another team comprising TSO and Societe General des Travaux (France), and a consortium comprising Somafel (Portugal) and Seprob (local).

In 2015, France’s Alstom won a contract from Casa Transports to supply 50 of its Citadis trams for Line 2. The contract with Alstom was valued at €100m.

Alstom supplied 74 Citadis units for Line 1 in 2009, and another contract for power supply and signalling equipment in 2010.

Line 1 links Casablanca’s East and Southwest districts, and calls at 48 stations.

Each tram can accommodate up to 606 passengers and will carry up to 250,000 passengers a day.