Alstom and its two Chinese joint ventures, Shanghai Alstom Transport Electrical Equipment (SATEE) and CASCO, have won two $193m contracts to provide advanced traction and signalling systems for Line 6 of the Beijing Metro in China.

The contract was awarded by Beijing MTR Construction Administration Corporation.

SATEE will equip 512 metro cars (64 eight-car train set) with its latest technology of traction system, OPTONIX, which will decrease journey hours, increase frequency of the train operation and reduce the energy consumption by 30%.

The system implemented on Beijing L15 has been fully operational since the end of 2010.

CASCO will deliver its train control and signalling system Urbalis communication-based train control (CBTC) to Line 6, which integrates network communications with data transmission by radio.

The CBTC system, which is already implemented on Line 2, reduces the intervals between trains to ensure passenger traffic of over one million passengers per day, Railway Technology reports.