Alstom has inaugurated a new production line for Citadis trams at its Taubaté plant, state of São Paulo, in Brazil. The opening ceremony was attended by local authorities, company representatives and Henri Poupart-Lafarge, President of Alstom Transport.

This new production facility – in which Alstom has invested about €15 million – will serve the Brazilian market and, in a near future, the Latin America region where a number of new tramway projects are emerging. When fully operational, the facility will employ around 150 people. The first trams to be produced in Taubaté are the 32 Citadis for Rio de Janeiro ordered to Alstom within the VLT Carioca consortium in September 2013[1]. This contract is part of a program called Porto Maravilha led by the municipality to modernize the port area. The trams are expected to be delivered between 2015 and mid-2016, in time for the Olympic Games. “More than a transport mode, the tramway redesigns the cities and offers their residents with sustainable, comfortable and accessible mobility. It has already been adopted by a larger number of cities around the world over the last decades. With no doubt, this trend is now starting in Brazil and this is why Alstom has invested in this new manufacturing line to accompany tramway projects not only for Brazil but also for all Latin America,” says Michel Boccaccio, Senior Vice President for Alstom Transport in Latin America. The production line is 16,000 sq meters and is able to produce about 7 or 8 trams per month. The factory adopts state-of-the-art environmental practices with, for example, the use of rain water to test the leakage of the train.