A ticket to make one trip on the Makkah metro would cost SR4, a government official said.

Saad Al-Qadi, CEO of the Makkah Trains Company and the director general of the project, said the metro would start operating in the third quarter of 2019. He said that 15 consortia had submitted bids to build the metro at an estimated cost of SR25.5 billion.

The assigned committee will announce the winning bids during the first quarter of this year, said Al-Qadi. Al-Qadi said the project had already completed all preliminary studies including working out the line lengths, stations and directions of the trains.

He said tenders would be issued in March for two of the four lines.