Alstom has signed a contract with Dallas Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) to upgrade its Skylink automated people mover (APM) system.

The contract is worth just over $72.2 million. The Airport covers over 26 square miles and is one of the world’s busiest, with over six thousand employees on site daily and over 73 million passengers last year, according to the Airports Council International.

Alstom‘s work will include overhauling, retrofitting or replacing vehicle and wayside components. The work is needed in order to prevent the system becoming obsolete and to allow it to provide continuous, reliable and safe operation.

Last year, Alstom signed a ten-year contract to continue maintaining the 64 Innovia APM 200 vehicles, subsystems and related components. The company is also responsible for maintaining the eight-kilometre elevated dual-lane guideway, which includes the guide beam, third rail power, power distribution, guideway heating systems and Automatic Train Control equipment. Alstom has a team of one hundred operations and maintenance experts serving the DFW Skylink, with a consistent operational performance of 99.7%.

Alstom has over fifty years’ experience in designing, building, maintaining and operating fully-automated and energy-efficient APM systems, having so far delivered more than thirty systems with full operations and maintenance support. In 1971, the company installed the world’s first driverless APM system at Tampa International Airport. Eight of the USA‘s ten busiest airports have chosen Alstom for their automated transit systems.

The driverless Innovia APM is designed to serve airports and dense urban areas, with Alstom boasting that it incorporates modern aesthetics and advanced subsystems for optimised functionality, and offers fast, comfortable and convenient service for commuters within cities, to and from airports, or between airport terminals. Innovia APM cars run on a dedicated guideway, which can be underground, at ground level, or elevated, so that it avoids interfering with nearby road or runway traffic.

Michael Keroullé, President and CEO of Alstom Americas, said: “Dallas Fort Worth International Airport is one of the busiest in the world, and the Skylink APM is fundamental to moving passengers and the employees who keep the airport running. We are grateful for DFW’s long-term partnership, which demonstrates the value our services team continues to bring to our airport customers. We are committed to this partnership. This new contract will allow us to further enhance the world-class experience people have come to expect from Skylink.”