CAIRO: A total of 95 x-ray devices have been installed on entrances of all stations of the first and second metro lines to detect explosives, managing director of the company Khaled Sabra told Youm7 Wednesday.
An additional 25 devices will be installed at the metro at a cost of 30 million EGP ($3.83 million,) Sabra said. The metro is considered part of Egypt’s national security, as it transports millions of passengers on daily basis from different parts of the capital. Major traffic problems aboveground occur if a metro station is closed.
No fatal attacks have been carried out against the metro, but the government shut down central Sadat metro station for about two years after the dispersal of Rabaa al-Adaweya sit-in in August 2013 for “security reasons.”
The company has announced several plans to expand the massive network connecting the capital and to improve its services. Four carriages of the oldest metro line running from Helwan to Marg have been air-conditioned; the newer lines are already air-conditioned.
Cairo Metro had announced a wireless internet service at its stations, but the plan has been indefinitely postponed over “security concerns.”
The digging of the third phase of the third metro line will begin before 2016 to be inaugurated in three years, according to the acting head of the National Authority for Tunnels Sameh Refat.
The phase will include 15 stations underground and aboveground over a distance of 17.7 kilometers, connecting Imbaba and Mohandiseen west of the Nile, and pass under the Nile River to Zamalek and continue to Attaba, Abassiya, Cairo Stadium, Heliopolis and the Cairo Airport.
Additional reporting by Reda Hebishi.