OREANDA-NEWS. July 6, 2011. Mayor of Astana Imangali Tasmagambetov reported to the President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev on the project “New transport system of Astana”, other words, the creation of light rail line.

The project “New transport system of Astana” will be implemented in three stages. At the first stage it is planned to build a site from the airport to Abu Dhabi Plaza. At the second stage a site from Abu Dhabi Plaza to the railway station, the third from the Railway Station to Abu Dhabi Plaza. The total length of the path will be 41.8 km,” the Mayor said.

The Mayor demonstrated the LRT stations, trains, how its facilities will be integrated into the existing architectural environment and coincide with new construction projects, at the presentation stands to the President of Kazakhstan.

Kazakhstan's President has laid a commemorative capsule in the place of LRT construction.

The specialized company “Astana LRT” was established for the light rail project implementation, which is defined by the customer for the LRT design and construction.

It is planned to use high-speed trams, manufactured by Alstom (France) in the first stage of construction.

There will be 12 trains of two directional movements between the airport and Abu Dhabi Plaza.

The train’s capacity is 250 people, including 39 seated places.

In accordance with Astana climate the stations will be closed with ventilation and heating.

For safety and convenience of passengers there will be underground pedestrian crossings, equipped with elevators and escalators. Peron’s part will be physically separated from the ways of automatic admission (glass doors, open doors along with cars).

Taking into account the architectural design of the city it is planned the construction of 3 unique stations, which are fully consistent with its object of attraction, these are an airport, Abu Dhabi Plaza and a train station.

On June 22, 2011 a competition on the implementation of the project, called “New transport system of Astana” recognized the winner of the consortium of companies “Alstom” – “AIS Astana” JSC – “Investpromproekt” JSC.

Building and construction works of the first stage will start on August 25, 2011 and fully will be completed by December 2013. The construction of the second stage is scheduled to 2012 with commissioning in 2014.

Totally, 49 trains and 27 train stations will be involved according to the plan.

The implementation of the project would provide 440 jobs, including 163 drivers. After the commissioning, about 200 000 people will use the services of the LRT a day.