Transport Ministry Director-General Moshe Ben-Zaken told a local government conference that Transport Minister Miri Regev instructed him Wednesday morning not to advance talks with Spanish company CAF, which is interested in operating the planned NTA Metropolitan Train (Metro), citing the recurring malfunctions of light rail operator Kfir — a CAF subsidiary — on Jerusalem's existing light rail line, according to Ben-Zaken's remarks.
Transport Ministry Director-General Moshe Ben-Zaken told the local government conference on Wednesday morning that he received a clear directive from Transport Minister Miri Regev: freeze all advancement of talks with Spanish company CAF regarding its potential role in operating the NTA Metropolitan Train (Metro). The reason cited was the series of ongoing malfunctions by Kfir, the CAF-owned operator of the Jerusalem light rail line. Ben-Zaken described the instruction as a "bomb" dropped at the conference, underscoring the significance of tying a major future public transport project to the performance of an existing operator. The remarks come as the ministry had previously convened an urgent meeting on replacing the light rail operator altogether due to the malfunctions, as The Zioneer reported on June 23. The minister's directive effectively links the fraught Jerusalem light rail situation to the metro tender, which is central to Israel's mass transit plans in the Gush Dan region.
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