Astana LRT: all 19 trainsets in simultaneous final testing

Lire en français : LRT d'Astana : les 19 rames en essais simultanés avant l'ouverture

Astana's automated light metro (LRT) has entered its final testing phase: the city administration of the Kazakh capital announced on 7 April 2026 that all nineteen trainsets supplied by CRRC Tangshan are now running together on the line in fully automatic GoA4 mode. This stage is intended to validate the system ahead of a commercial opening announced for spring 2026, after a project launched in 2017 and left idle for nearly four years.

Trials under real operating conditions

According to the city administration, the trials replicate revenue service: passenger boarding and alighting, station dwell times and adherence to the timetable. The line had already been in test running since September 2025, initially on a short section at 10 km/h, then over the full route.

Project manager Astana LRT says the trains have reached their design speed of 80 km/h and that the traffic management, communication and signalling systems are operating correctly. A unified dispatch centre supervises all train movements and analyses operating data in real time.

Mayor Zhenis Kassymbek and Deputy Prime Minister Roman Sklyar visited the depot and the dispatch centre in March 2026. The proposed fare is 200 tenge per journey.

A 22.4 km elevated line with 18 stations

The first line links Nurly Zhol, the city's main railway hub, with the international airport, running via the Left Bank, the National Museum and Astana Arena. The city quotes 22.4 km and 18 stations; some trade press sources give a slightly shorter length (21.3 km). The line is built mostly on viaduct, a solution chosen to limit costs and avoid winter constraints at ground level.

The infrastructure uses 1,520 mm broad gauge and a 750 V DC power supply. Stations are fitted with platform screen doors, a prerequisite for operation with no staff on board.

• Length: 22.4 km (city figures)
• Stations: 18
• Fleet: 19 four-car trainsets, 15 in service and 4 in reserve
• Trainset: about 60 m long, 600 to 650 passengers depending on the source
• Maximum speed: 80 km/h
• Planned headway: 4 to 5 minutes
• Theoretical capacity: 146,000 passengers per day

CRRC rolling stock and full automation

The four-car trains were built by CRRC Tangshan and delivered from 2025. They are designed for temperatures down to −40 °C, a major constraint in one of the coldest capitals in the world. GoA4 (IEC 62290) means operation with neither driver nor attendant on board: train wake-up, departures, station stops and alignment with platform doors are fully automated.

For train-to-ground communications, Huawei supplied an LTE-M network (base stations, core network, handheld terminals) covering the line and depot, a technology widely used in China as the bearer for CBTC. The supplier of the signalling and train control system has not been publicly disclosed.

A project long seen as a symbol of failure

The Astana LRT was awarded in 2015 to a consortium of China Railway International Group and Beijing State-Owned Assets Management, and construction began in May 2017. The China Development Bank had granted a US$313 million loan, of which US$258 million was deposited with a local lender, Astana Bank, which subsequently collapsed. The credit was frozen and work was suspended in 2019.

Several officials and executives were prosecuted for embezzlement and inflated contracts; convictions handed down at first instance in 2021 were later overturned on appeal. The unfinished viaduct piers remained for years a symbol of corruption in the country. In 2022, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev ordered the project to be completed, with fresh budget allocations (20 billion tenge in 2022, 50 billion in 2023), and work resumed in 2023 with City Transportation Systems as client.

What to watch

As of 7 April 2026, opening remained subject to full system certification, with no firm date. The first months of operation, and above all the first winter, will show how reliable the automated system proves to be. The city is planning a second phase of 26.5 km with 20 stations.

Update (October 2026)

The line was inaugurated on 16 May 2026 by President Tokayev, the first passenger on the network, branded Tarlan. Services run from 06:00 to 23:00 at a fare of 200 tenge. Operated by City Transportation Systems, the line carried one million passengers in its first two weeks, 3.2 million between opening and 30 June, and 7.3 million during its first 100 days (24 August 2026), an average of around 73,000 passengers per day.

Sources: The Astana Times, articles of 7 April, May and July 2026; International Railway Journal, 8 April 2026; Railway Gazette International, 2023; Urban Transport Magazine, May 2026; Railway Supply, 1 October 2025; Railway News, August 2026; Huawei, Astana LRT case study, September 2025; Eurasianet, 28 February 2023; The Diplomat, October 2021.

Photo: Rail tracks of the “Astana LRT” project. Photo from the official site of the project clrt.k, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons