The president of Metro do Porto, Tiago Braga, acknowledged today that the end of 2026 is a demanding deadline to build the Ruby Line, revealing that there will be up to 16 work fronts to carry out the contract.
“The three years is a demanding deadline, which we know is demanding, we’ve never hidden that. We’re talking about three kilometers of tunnel and a bridge,” Tiago Braga told reporters today in Vila Nova de Gaia (Porto district).
The head of Metro do Porto was speaking to journalists after the consignment ceremony for the Ruby Line (Casa da Música – Santo Ovídio), which took place today at Caves Ferreira, in Gaia, in homage to the name of the future bridge over the River Douro on the line, which will bear the name of Dona Antónia Ferreira, ‘a Ferreirinha’.
“This project is very, very complex, it involves many specialties, it has many challenges,” he stressed, pointing out that “there is no project in Portugal with these deadlines,” also referring to the bureaucratic procedures that have already been overcome up to the consignment stage.
For Tiago Braga, if the deadlines have been met by Metro do Porto so far, “there is nothing to suspect that, going forward, there will not be the same level of competence”, and he even said that the work will mark “the world history of civil engineering”.
He stressed that up to 16 work fronts could be open to build the Ruby Line, with “a growing intensity of occupation”.
“We know that Santo Ovídio [in Gaia] is fundamental,” said Tiago Braga, adding that “on the Porto side, the parking lot where the Campo Alegre station will be located is also a front that needs to be put into operation immediately.”
The structures for the work will be assembled “in the next few days”, probably starting next week, as over the next 10 days the contractor will present a plan of ‘attack’ on the land.
For Tiago Braga, the construction of the Ruby Line is a “bigger and more complex challenge than the three [works] already underway” by Metro do Porto: extension of the Yellow Line, construction of the Pink Line, and the Boavista ‘metrobus’.
During his speech, Tiago Braga had already highlighted the network character of the Rubi Line, saying that it will foster “a network effect on other modes of transport” by having connections to the train, both at the Devesas (Gaia) station on the Northern Line and the future high-speed station in Santo Ovídio.
The Santo Ovídio and Casa da Música terminus stations make the Ruby Line “a circular line, a high-frequency service ring that will act as a distribution hub for customers coming from networks with greater capillarity, whether by road or from the metro system itself”.
The Ruby Line is expected to provide an increase of 12 million customers per year for Metro do Porto, as well as an annual reduction of 17.5 tons of carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere.
On December 20, the Court of Auditors granted prior approval to the 379.5 million euro construction contract for Metro do Porto’s Rubi Line, a company source told Lusa.
The contract for the construction of the Rubi Line of the Porto Metro was signed with the Alberto Couto Alves (ACA) consortium, FCC Construcción and Contratas y Ventas on November 3, for more than 379.5 million euros.
The overall investment value of the Ruby Line (Casa da Música – Santo Ovídio, including the new bridge over the Douro River) is 435 million, an investment financed by the Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR).
The Ruby Line, with 6.4 kilometers and eight stations, includes a new crossing over the Douro River, the “Ponte D. Antónia Ferreira, a Ferreirinha”, which will be exclusively reserved for the Metro and pedestrian and bicycle traffic.
In Gaia, the stations planned for the Ruby Line are Santo Ovídio, Soares dos Reis, Devesas, Rotunda, Candal and Arrábida, and in Porto Campo Alegre and Casa da Música.
