Alstom (www.alstom.com) has delivered the first of 60 Citadis X05 light rail vehicles (LRVs) to Transport for New South Wales (TfNSW) in Sydney, Australia.

Sydney is the first city in the world to receive the Citadis X05 LRV, which was designed by Alstom and is assembled in La Rochelle (France).

The new vehicles are aimed at reducing Sydney’s dependency on motor vehicles and buses, in order to cut greenhouse emissions and noise pollution.

Each LRV will operate in a 67m-long ‘couple set’ that will accommodate up to 450 people. The network will be able to move up to 13,500 passengers per hr.

The impact to the environment will be minimised through increased energy efficiency — achieved by the use of electrical braking, permanent-magnet motors, LED lights, sensor-based air-conditioning and the use of water-based paints and non-hazardous materials for construction.

Each vehicle will be 98% recyclable at the end of its 30-year life-span.

Currently, more than 50 cities world-wide operate Alstom’s Citadis LRVs. The Citadis X05 model has been produced first for Sydney, but it will also soon be rolled out in other cities, including Nice and Avignon (France), and Kaohsiung (Taiwan).

Testing and commissioning of the LRVs will take place in Sydney later this year.