“Unfortunately, due to the vicissitudes of public procurement, we have been almost eight months stuck with the process. Fortunately, we can start now that we’re about to sign the contract which will be sent for approval by the Court of Auditors,” Tiago Braga stated during the debate “What Mobility Do We Want/Will We Have in 2035?”, held today at the former Vasco da Gama canning facility in Matosinhos, Porto district.
Tiago Braga emphasized the objective to commence “the construction as quickly as possible”, noting that there are external factors beyond the company’s control.
“Under normal circumstances, we would probably have the infrastructure ready by now,” he mentioned.
On August 1, 2024, it was reported that the construction firm ABB contested the awarding of the second phase of Porto’s metrobus project (Pinheiro Manso – Anémona) to DST by Metro do Porto, a contract valued at 14.9 million euros.
The urgent administrative action filed in the Porto Administrative and Fiscal Court held an automatic suspensive effect, whereby ABB requested the reversal of its exclusion from the tender and the awarding of the contract to itself.
The action indicated that the public tender’s winner was DST, with a proposal of 16.4 million euros, higher than ABB’s 14.9 million, which was the lowest mentioned in the preliminary report of the tender jury.
Apart from ABB and DST, initial submissions included a proposal by the ACA/Alves Ribeiro consortium (15.8 million euros) and Conduril (19.5 million euros), both of which were later excluded.
Price was not the sole criterion for awarding the contract, contributing 70% to the jury’s assessment, while the remaining 30% was for the technical quality of the proposal.
The jury’s rationale for excluding ABB was primarily based on the technical quality aspect, as the company allegedly included in the critical path of the project activities that should not be part of it, such as non-construction-related endeavors (involving depots or systems for quality, safety, and environment, for example), according to the jury’s interpretation.
ABB argued that including non-construction activities “could only result in the disregard of the presented critical path”, evaluating it but with 40 points (instead of the previous 70, prior to the exclusion), and “never determining the exclusion” of ABB, which eventually happened.
ABB also pointed out that in a previous public tender by Metro do Porto, for the extension of the Yellow Line between Santo Ovídio and Vila d’Este, in a similar situation, the jury did not exclude proposals, as had been the case in other past situations.
The metrobus will connect Casa da Música to Praça do Império (in 12 minutes) and to Anémona (in 17), featuring stations such as Casa da Música, Guerra Junqueiro, Bessa, Pinheiro Manso, Serralves, João de Barros, and Império in the first service, and Antunes Guimarães, Garcia de Orta, Nevogilde, Castelo do Queijo, and Praça Cidade do Salvador (Anémona) in the second.
The first service is not yet operational, awaiting the arrival of vehicles to operate it.
The service’s vehicles will be hydrogen buses similar to conventional metro trains, developed for 29.5 million euros by a consortium involving CaetanoBus and DST Solar, which includes the fuel infrastructure.
The metrobus project amounts to approximately 76 million euros.
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