On January 31, OTW, the Walloon transport operator, and Tram'Ardent signed a public-private partnership (P3) contract for the financing, design, construction and maintenance of the first tramway line in Liege, Belgium. Tram'Ardent is a consortium comprised of Colas Belgium, Colas Projects, Colas Rail Belgium, CAF Investment Projects - a subsidiary of the Spanish rolling stock manufacturer Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles (CAF), and the investment fund DIF Infrastructure V. 

The 31-year contract includes a 45-month design-build phase, followed by a 27-year maintenance period. 

Liège's first tramway line is 12-km long, with 90% reserved lane. It will serve 21 stations and link the multimodal station Sclessin southwest of Liège to Coronmeuse in the northeast via the High Speed train station and Saint Lambert Square. 

Composed of CAF and Colas subsidiaries, the consortium is managed by Colas Projects. Colas is responsible for the design-build of the stations, tracks, overhead contact lines, buildings and engineering structures, as well as the project's urban development work, including 240,000 m² of ancillary projects promoting soft mobility, for a total of 266 million euros. CAF is in charge of the design-build of systems and rolling stock.

Work is slated to begin in 2019, with commissioning scheduled for October 2022. The maintenance company comprised of Colas Belgium, Colas Rail Belgium and CAF Belgium will then maintain the infrastructure and equipment for 27 years. 

This public-private partnership confirms Colas' expertise in building tramways and managing major projects. Colas has been involved in most of the recent tramway projects in France, as well as in Rabat and Casablanca in Morocco. In addition, Colas Rail, part of the Midlands Metro Alliance (MMA), is participating in the extension project on the Birmingham tramway in the United Kingdom.