From a company whose founder designed New York’s first subway line nine decades ago to a French consultancy firm working on light rail transit systems in Grenoble, Dublin, Montpellier, Lyon and Strasbourg, the global A-listers of top-notch engineering and consultancy wait in the wings as Mumbai’s first Metro Rail project kicks off.

Six joint venture entities are in the reckoning to be project management consultants. And, with the Mumbai Metro One company — the special purpose vehicle to build India’s first public-private partnered mass rapid transit system — to be formed in just a few days now, the race is warming up for those shortlisted. “We are seeing a joint venture between an American and a French company,” says Debasis Mohanty of Reliance Energy Ltd, who has been working on the REL-led consortium’s Mumbai Metro project since its inception. “That’s a sign of the immense global interest in this project.” Parsons Brinckerhoff (founder William Barclay Parsons designed New York’s first subway line in 1904) is partnered by French firm Systra. Both were associated with the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation too.

The others include MTR Corporation, Hong Kong with Matt Mac Donald; AECOM of USA with Singapore’s Land Transport Authority; Semaly of France with BECOM Jean Muller and the Second Survey and Design Institute (SSDI) China. While MTR Hong Kong is currently doing mass rapid transit projects in Beijing and Shanghai, Mumbai’s model city, Mott Mac Donald is working on Heathrow’s Terminal 5, a huge engineering assignment covering 260 hectares. AECOM, one of the world’s biggest consultancies, has to its credit, highways, ports, airports and transit systems from Nottingham to New York. Semaly is building light rail transit systems across Europe besides assisting with the London Underground’s Jubilee Line extension.

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