Africa’s first high speed train will be launched in Morocco in 2018 after conducting one last test next February, state-owned railway operator ONCF said.
The latest tests were staged successfully at a speed of 320 km per hour earlier this week, ONCF said in a statement.
The over 2 billion-dollar project has been in development for a decade, financed by numerous partners, including France, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates.
The TGV has set the target of transporting 6 million passengers a year with departures every hour from Casablanca and Tangier, with the aim to achieve an average occupancy rate of 70%.
Morocco bought 12 high-speed trains from France’ s train manufacturer, Alstom. The trains will operate at 320km/h on the high-speed line to achieve a Tangiers – Casablanca journey time of 2h 10min, instead of 4h 45min today.
