At 18:00 local time in Saudi Arabia on June 19, China Railway Construction Corporation (CRCC) successfully completed the 2024 Hajj operation of the Mecca Light Rail in Saudi Arabia. This marks CRCC's 10th successful completion of the Hajj operation. The project is currently the rail transit project with the largest designed transport capacity, the most complex operating model, and the heaviest operational tasks in the world.

A light rail train in operation

Starting from 4:00 a.m. on June 13, over seven days and six nights, with operating ambient temperatures reaching as high as 51.8 degrees Celsius, the project team worked continuously for 158 hours, accumulating more than 50,000 kilometers of operating mileage, running a total of 2,206 train trips, and transporting more than 2.094 million passengers.

Since the Mecca Light Rail project was officially put into operation in 2010, CRCC has successively undertaken operation tasks in 2010-2014, 2018-2019, and 2022-2024, successfully transporting more than 25 million pilgrims. Facing pilgrims from all over the world, CRCC creatively combined the technical experience of China Railway's "Spring Festival travel rush" operation management with the operational needs of the Saudi Mecca Light Rail. Based on the pilgrimage process and passenger flow patterns, it developed a variety of operating models, establishing a brand for Chinese enterprises' rail operations in the Middle East and winning high praise from all sectors of Saudi society and Muslims worldwide.

Pilgrims give a thumbs-up to the CRCC team

The CRCC Mecca Light Rail project has created a "golden signature" for Chinese enterprises in the Middle East and has also contributed corporate strength to the friendly exchanges between China and Saudi Arabia. On January 18, 2016, on the occasion of his state visit to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, President Xi Jinping published a signed article titled "Be Good Partners for Common Development" in the Saudi newspaper Al-Riyadh. The article noted that the light rail project built by a Chinese company in the holy city of Mecca provides convenient services for Muslim pilgrims from around the world. Faisal, a passenger from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, felt this deeply. "The Mecca Light Rail made our pilgrimage journey convenient and smooth. It gave me and my friends a perfect riding experience!" Faisal said after taking the train.

Pilgrims riding the Mecca Light Rail

To cope with this year's extreme heat and humidity, the desert air-conditioning system on the station platforms operates 24 hours a day, using water vapor evaporation to achieve a cooling effect and providing suitable temperature and humidity inside the stations. CRCC attaches importance to multicultural care, provides multilingual services, carefully designs light rail carriage facilities, introduces intelligent systems, and fully upgrades real-time information to bring passengers a comfortable riding environment.

CRCC values the career development of local employees. Over the past 10 years, it has continuously customized training materials for local employees, carried out systematic vocational training and "Chinese mentor" coaching activities, and trained approximately 60,000 foreign employees in total, covering multiple positions such as core station staff and train crew, cultivating more than 600 high-level technical talents, enabling more foreign employees to take up management positions, and supplying a large number of rail transit operation technical talents to the local area.

Operation command center

CRCC focuses on integrating resources inside and outside the system and driving the coordinated overseas expansion of China's industrial chain, supply chain, and service chain. The project team focused on strengthening international resource allocation and, together with more than 30 Chinese and foreign enterprises including China Railway Beijing Group, Siemens, and Otis, established an integrated operation system, solving *** rail transit operation and maintenance challenges and demonstrating CRCC's technical strength and cooperative attitude of honoring commitments and fulfilling contracts.

To ensure smooth operation, CRCC International held multiple special meetings and worked in full cooperation with partner units to scientifically optimize the operation plan. The project leader took rotating duty at the operation control center, monitoring the dynamics of each control point along the line and optimizing the operation plan in a timely manner. The project department set up a platform service "assault team" that shouldered heavy responsibilities. In the high-temperature and high-humidity environment, they demonstrated CRCC's sense of responsibility with hard work and sweat, and successfully completed the annual Hajj operation task.

The operation of the Saudi Mecca Light Rail has achieved a "dual improvement" in social and economic benefits, laying a solid foundation for CRCC International's expansion in the regional market. Under the positive influence of this project, CRCC International has successively entered multiple fields in the Middle East, including building construction, railways, sports venue construction, and livelihood security projects, laying a solid foundation for CRCC's high-quality development in the Saudi market.