California’s High-Speed Rail: A Long-term Engineering Partnership

Reducing emissions & boosting California’s economy

Implemented by the California High-Speed Rail Authority, the aim of the high-speed rail line is to reduce journey times, particularly between the San Francisco Bay Area and Greater Los Angeles, as well as cutting carbon emissions, easing congestion on highways and air traffic, and boosting the state’s economy, particularly in the Central Valley region.

A long-term engineering partnership

SYSTRA has been working on this high-speed rail project since 2006, when it was subcontracted by Parsons Brinckerhoff. Since 2019, as a subcontractor of the Canadian engineering firm Stantec, we have been involved in supervising all aspects of systems engineering, carrying out preliminary studies of the rail systems, and supporting the preliminary structural studies of two bridges.

Extending the line: designing the Central Valley section

At the end of 2022, SYSTRA increased the scope of its assignments and is now an integral part of the consortium in charge of designing the section between Merced and Madera (known as the M-M section) on the future high-speed line (HSL) in California, in the Central Valley area. We are responsible for carrying out the design studies for the route of the line, with the option of delivering the final design studies and preparing the documents to launch construction.

The purpose of these assignments is to advance the construction of the HSL to Merced in the north and Bakersfield in the south, as an extension of the portion already built in the Central Valley, i.e. a stretch of 84km to be added to the 275km already built.

The commissioning of the line is scheduled for 2030.