Hitachi has won the contract to manufacture 600 items of rolling stock for the Taiwan Railways Administration’s (TRA) new intercity trains, the agency said yesterday, adding that the tender would not be finalized until it has completed the relevant procedures.
The decision was made on Friday last week at a meeting of the TRA’s procurement evaluation committee, during which committee members reviewed the bids from Hitachi and Swiss railway rolling stock manufacturer Stadler Rail.
The result must first be signed off by TRA Director-General Chang Cheng-yuan (張政源) before the tender can be finalized by the Bank of Taiwan’s procurement department, the agency said.
If the bid is finalized and Hitachi and TRA sign the contract by the end of this year or next month, the first batch of 24 intercity train carriages would be included in its fleet in 2021, the agency said.
Hitachi and Stadler are excellent rolling stock manufacturers and scored more than 80 points in the tender’s first round, said a committee member, who spoke to the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) on condition of anonymity.
When the committee members were asked to rank the first and second-placed bidders, Hitachi secured a narrow victory, the committee member said.
The agency said that the TRA director-general almost always respects the decision made by the committee members, as long as there is no major controversy or problem during the review process.
The budget for the TRA’s contract with Hitachi was NT$44.29 billion (US$1.44 billion), the agency said.
The contract is part of the agency’s 10-year procurement plan to buy 1,282 train carriages. The total budget is estimated to be more than NT$93.9 billion.
In addition to Hitachi, the agency has purchased 520 items of commuter rolling stock from South Korean manufacturer Hyundai Rotem, at a cost of NT$25.34 billion.
The first batch of carriages is to arrive in 2020, the TRA said.
The agency said that it has yet to find enough bidders for its electricity, diesel and plug-in hybrid electric carriage contracts.
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