Bombardier Signs New People Mover Contract at San Francisco Airport

Bombardier will continue operating its people mover rail system at San Francisco International Airport, after being awarded a new contract worth $101m.

Bombardier Transportation has signed an eight-year contract with the City and County of San Francisco to operate and maintain the Automated People Mover (APM) system at San Francisco (SFO) International Airport.

The APM network, which has been operated by bombardier since it opened to passengers in 2003, operates 24 hours a day and serves ten stations over 10km of elevated guideway.

The APM uses a fleet of AirTrain of 38 CX-100 vehicles to connect all the airport's terminals, parking garages and the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) Station with the Rental Car Centre.

Vice president, operations and maintenance, Bombardier Transportation's Systems Division, Michael Shaman, said that he was delighted to extend a partnership that had so much success over the last five years.

"Recent passenger surveys conducted by an independent research organisation in the aviation industry recognised SFO as the best airport in North America in 2008," he said. "We are proud of our contribution to its success.”

Airport director at SFO, John L Martin said that since start-up, the SFO AirTrain has been a model airport people mover system.

"Since its inception the AirTrain has held a high level of service and reliability, providing the critical link between the terminals, parking garages, rental car facility and BART," Martin said.

SFO AirTrain was the first transit system in the world to deploy communications-based train control – the Bombardier CITYFLO 650 automatic train control technology.

By Daniel Garrun.