Alstom has been awarded a further operations and maintenance contract by the Maryland Department of Transportation – Maryland Transit Administration. The contract features a base term which is made up of an initial five-year contract with a budget of approximately €367 million which could see two extensions added for 2028 and 2033 which would round up the value of the contract to roughly €1.2 billion.

Alstom was previously awarded a service contract in 2012 for the Maryland Area Rail Commuter Camden Line and Brunswick Lines and this latest agreement will see this work continue and is a mark of Alstoms expertise and extensive experience. The contract will see Alstom responsible for:

• Train operations
• Customer service
• Crewing
• Maintenance of locomotives and railcar fleet
• Station and facilities management.

The Maryland Area Rail Commuters fleet is made up of 42 diesel locomotives, 60 MARC II passenger cars and 54 Alstom BiLevel coaches, MultiLevel II MARC IV coaches. The vehicles will see maintenance carried out at the Maryland Transit Administration’s MARC Train maintenance facilities and will include daily inspections, equipment servicing, and preventive and corrective maintenance.

The new contract will also cover the trialling of a fuel-saving programme alongside digital innovations which will support Alstom’s aims to provide more sustainable and smarter mobility and will include:

• ‘Digital Twin’ is a virtual tool for both facilities and equipment and allows efficiencies to be achieved by reducing travel time, linking data and maintenance information alongside improving training capabilities.
• 3D printing will be utilised to allow certain maintenance procedures and replacement of parts to be carried out in an extremely efficient manner.
• The Remote Assistance platform will offer real-time analysis and problem-solving in the work environment by local and regional teams despite their current location.

Michael Keroullé, Alstom Americas President said: “We are delighted to have the opportunity to strengthen our long and proud relationship with the Maryland Transit Administration, and very proud of our performance since we initiated services in 2013,”

“We look forward to serving MARC with the continued high-performance standards we have demonstrated in the past decade.”