Thibaut Trancart is the country director for the UAE for Thales Group. The Frenchman arrived here three years ago from Thales in Libya where he was also in charge. On the fifth anniversary of the opening of the Dubai Metro, Mr Trancart reflects on the company’s involvement in that project and the continuing boom of transportation projects in the UAE.
Remind us of Thales’s role in the construction of the Dubai Metro.
We worked with Mitsubishi Heavy Industry (MHI), which headed the consortium that built the system, on the design made by the Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) and our job was to enable the train to operate on its own on a fully automatic basis. What does that mean in concrete terms? We did the communications system, the signalling system, the ticketing system (which is basally fare collection) and some of the security equipment.
Five years on, how do you measure the success of the Dubai Metro?
In 2009 it was the longest driverless train system in the world and that is still the case today. In terms of design, it represents quite a lot of innovation and it’s something of which we are definitely proud. Dubai Metro remains a showcase for us all over the world. And the figures speak for themselves. We are reaching 500,000 passengers more or less every day. And if we take the rates of availability and punctuality which are above 99 per cent, it’s one of the most reliable systems we have ever seen in the world.
What projects are you currently focusing on in the UAE?
In transportation, we are pleased to be in an area of the world where the market is booming. Speaking about Dubai first, we’ve got Dubai 2020 – we are going to have a huge amount of extension for the Dubai Metro, and the RTA has massive plans on the Green Line and Red Line extensions. We’ve got the Etihad Rail project. Unfortunately, we were not involved in phase one [from Shah and Habshan to Ruwais] but phases two and three are coming. We are optimistic, but we are waiting for the result of the competition. We’ve got the Abu Dhabi Metro project and also the trams project. We’ve got a lot of other areas of growth in the airport domain with Abu Dhabi midfield terminal, DWC. We delivered Terminal 3 Concourse 2 of Dubai Airport [providing security and communication systems] and the air traffic management and navigation systems for Abu Dhabi’s international airport as well. By 2020 one aircraft in 20 will be flying out of the UAE and that can definitely give us a huge array of growth as well.
How do you see the company developing here over the next few years?
Globally, Thales operates in aerospace, space, defence, security, transportation. And Thales in the UAE is involved in all those areas of business. It’s rewarding to capture more and more business, but more importantly our key strategy right now is driven by localising activities in the country, by setting up key partnerships and alliances with local top-level companies in all of our areas of activity. This will allow us to export business from the UAE.
Does Thales find it difficult to attract qualified staff in the UAE, especially as Emiratis sometimes prefer to work in the public sector?
It is definitely a challenge. In the very early days of our presence in the UAE, we set up a company called the CERT Thales Institute which is a training centre. We trained a lot of people out of this academy which is kind of a vocational training institute. With Thales Université, we set up a lot of MOUs, agreements with some of the local universities – with Khalifa University, for instance, in Abu Dhabi – with the objective to use that to attract some local workforce to our local companies or joint ventures.
What has been your biggest achievement since coming to the UAE?
Of course, winning projects is something rewarding, but most importantly is the way we’ve been driving the company in the country – in the way we’ve been able to localise more and more activities into that while co-developing systems in the country and sharing intellectual property, offering some technology know-how. Of course, we have achievements that we collectively reached in the country which include the delivery of the Concourse 2 of Dubai Airport which was delivered on time and is a key achievement for us as well.
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