Bogotá is breathing change

Rome, 10 December 2025

Yesterday, colleagues from Italferr arrived back from the Colombian capital Bogotá, where they had travelled to take stock of one of Latin America's most ambitious infrastructure projects – the Primera Línea Metro Bogotá (PLMB) – and were welcomed at the Via Galati headquarters by the Director of Foreign Commercial Development, Business Affairs and Sustainability and the Area Manager for the Americas.

This is an emblematic project in terms of its size, duration, variety of issues addressed and scope of the engineering process carried out by our team, and at the same time marks a historic turning point for the population of the capital of Colombia. With an investment of over $5 billion, and after more than 70 years in the waiting, the new metro line promises to transform urban mobility, reduce congestion and improve the quality of life of the approximately 3 million inhabitants set to directly benefit from the future metro line.

24 km long and built entirely on viaducts, it will connect Bosa to Chapinero in just 27 minutes, with a capacity of 1 million passengers per day. The system will be fully automatic (GOA4) and will operate with 30 trains, ensuring minimum intervals of 90 seconds during peak hours.

The project will have a significant impact on the environment. It is estimated that it will reduce CO₂ emissions by 171,000 tonnes per year and save 19 million gallons of fossil fuels, equivalent to planting over 3.4 million trees. Bioclimatic architecture, the recirculation of water in stations, the drive towards modal integration and the creation of thousands of new jobs are all aspects that confirm our commitment to sustainability.

The polls say that public support for the project is very high (86%), thanks in part to a multi-channel communication strategy that focuses on transparency and participation, and yesterday's event definitely highlighted this.

The fast-paced construction is expected to end in 2027 and operations are scheduled to begin in March 2028.

The construction of Line 1 is backed by a well-oiled organisational machine, the Interventoría Integral CSPLMB, an international consortium of which Italferr is an active member, with more than 250 professionals working in different areas. This model ensures the smooth progress of the project, in engineering, social, environmental, economic, legal and contractual terms, with efficiency, safety and transparency, consolidating trust between the government, the public and the companies involved.

The project is now entering a crucial phase. Last September, while the viaduct takes shape, the city welcomed the first train of the metropolitan railway system, 135 metres long, consisting of six carriages and with a capacity of 1,800 passengers, it is equipped with the latest technology to ensure safety, reliability and comfort for future passengers.

Thanks to the use of multidimensional BIM and Business Intelligence tools developed directly by the CSPLMB Consortium, construction progress is continuously monitored and supports the client's strategic decisions, thanks to a detailed analysis of possible daily deviations from the execution schedule. Italferr's role as a key player in the management of digital control systems applied to infrastructure construction is confirmed.

Thanks to these solutions, the Bogotá Metro confirms its status as a global benchmark project for urban mobility, focusing on technology, sustainability and inclusion.