The ceremony to mark the commencement of works was chaired by H.R.H. Prince Faisal bin Bandar bin Abdulaziz; accompanied by the Riyadh Mayor and Chairman of the Oversight Committee of the ambitious metro project, H.E. Ibrahim al Sultan; authorities and by Jaime Freyre de Andrade, Director of the FAST consortium. The consortium is responsible for the design and construction of lines 4, 5 and 6 and was established in the pre-manufacturing plant near to Metro Control Centre, to the north of Princess Nora bint AbdulRahman University.

For the construction of the viaducts on this line, the Full Span Launching Method was used, which consists of pre-manufacturing the full span of the platform in prestressed concrete, its lifting, transport and subsequent placement with support from reinforced concrete pillars. Each span of the viaduct weighs 475 tonnes,

heavier than a 747 Jumbo Jet; it is 36 m long and is installed at a height of 7 m from ground level. This way it is possible to reduce the impact of the works on the flow of traffic affected by the line, as well as to optimise and industrialise the process thanks to the use of specific machinery.

The FCC-led Consortium is carrying out the assembly of the tunnelling machines for the excavation works of line 5 of the metro, conducted entirely underground and with an excavation start date planned for around the second quarter of 2015, with the help of two tunnelling machines which operate using the EPD (Earth Pressure Balance) method.

During the visit, the Prince checked the progress status of the different ongoing activities for the construction of the six metro lines which span across 175 kilometres.

The contract was awarded in July 2013 to the FAST Consortium responsible for the Riyadh metro, which also comprises companies such as Samsung from South Korea, Alstom Transport from France, Strukton from the Netherlands, and Freyssinet from Saudi Arabia.

The consignment led by FCC consists of the design and construction of lines 4 (yellow), 5 (green) and 6 (purple) of the new metro network, and incorporates 25 stations and 2 buildings for the repair and storage of the trains. The contract includes the construction of 64.3 kilometres of metro tracks, 33 kilometres of viaducts, 22 kilometres of underground tracks and 9 kilometres of overground tracks.

Riyadh city, the capital of Saudi Arabia, currently has a population of 5.7 million people and this figure is estimated to increase to 8.3 million by 2030.

The metro is a solution to the daily traffic problems as a result of 7.4 million journeys made, only 2% of which are currently made using public transport.

The project will be completed in five years and will provide employment to 15,000 people.