The King Abdulaziz Project for Public Transport in the capital will be completed on time as contracts have been signed, land plots have been earmarked and manpower and equipment for construction work have been set up.

This was announced by Gov. Prince Khaled bin Bandar on Sunday at the inauguration of the 2nd Health Innovation Conference 2013 at King Fahd Medical City in Riyadh.

The metro project is expected to begin with 202 cars and may be increased to 338 to meet possible future demand. It will have a daily capacity of 1.16 million passengers initially and may be increased to 3.6 million passengers in the future.

Riyadh has nearly 6 million inhabitants, and the population is expected to cross the 8 million-mark in 2030.

The plan is to reduce traffic congestion, enhance economic dynamism of the capital and improve the general quality of life. One of the world’s largest turnkey metro projects, this fully automatic driverless network will be 170-km long and include 87 stations.