Line D of the ‘Réseau Ferroviaire Rapide’ (RFR), the rapid rail network in Tunisia’s capital Tunis, was inaugurated on Saturday 25 January 2025, marking for SYSTRA the completion of the first phase of this inter-city rail network.
Thanks to line D of the RFR, the journey between the centre of Tunis and the town of Gobâa now takes just a quarter of an hour, compared with 4 to 5 times as long previously by bus. SYSTRA was responsible for the project management of this major project at every stage. With more than 10,000 passengers transported on the first day, this new suburban link will help to relieve congestion around Tunis and contribute to reducing pollutant emissions from transport.
After 10 days of testing and validation and 20 days of trial runs, the line was put into service in the presence of Tunisian Transport Minister Rachid Amri, French Ambassador Anne Guéguen, European Union Ambassador Giuseppe Perrone and representatives of the project’s main financiers (AFD, BEI, KFW).
„Throughout the project, we were able to count on the confidence of our Tunisian client, who followed the recommendations of our initial studies. Our assignment will continue until 2027, with possible future prospects if new lines are added to the network,” Michel Aribi, RFR project director, SYSTRA Tunisia, said.
„I would like to thank the teams involved in the Tunis RFR for their commitment. This rail network is a concrete and effective solution for reducing congestion in the Tunisian capital and is becoming a new key reference for SYSTRA in North Africa. We look forward to participating in projects in the coming years that will have such a major impact on the daily lives of Tunisians,” Faiçal Chaabane, Senior Vice President Egypt and North Africa, said.
SYSTRA’s teams have been in charge of all aspects of the project, including monitoring and supervising all phases of the construction of Line D, since 2010. Our experts are on site at all times, working alongside our local partner Studi.
More than 15 years serving the development of the Tunis RFR
The opening of line D, following the opening of line E in March 2023, marks a new stage in phase 1 of the RFR project, which now serves some major towns to the west of Tunis such as Bardo, Mellassine and La Manouba.
For SYSTRA, the creation of this rail network for Greater Tunis began in the early 2000s with the submission of preliminary design studies for the network, followed by the financial and institutional study in 2009 for the French Development Agency (AFD). We then monitored the project throughout its implementation phases.
The latest RFR has already proved popular, with 7 million passengers recorded in 2024 on line E alone. For the time being, line D is designed to accommodate more than 20,000 passengers from the western suburbs of Tunis, with spacious trains capable of carrying up to 2,400 passengers. The ‘Société du RFR de Tunis’ now wishes to launch updated studies to prepare for the arrival of lines C and F, for which financial negotiations have been launched. Ultimately, the RFR’s network should extend over 85km through the nerve centres of Greater Tunis.
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