The new operators of the Luas from September will be a joint venture between French transport company Keolis and British operations firm Amey, Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) and the National Transport Authority (NTA) have confirmed.
The news, first reported by The Irish Times in February, comes as Transdev lost out on the contract after 22 years of running the service.
The operation and maintenance contract is worth €1.3 billion for the initial term of seven years, with an option to extend for a further six years.
KeolisAmey, the French-British joint venture, is split 65 to 35 in favour of the French transportation company.
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The pair have run the docklands light railway in London since 2014 as part of a separate joint venture led by the French company. It was recently awarded a new eight-year contract for the service. It also runs Manchester’s Metrolink light rail network.
Operating across 13 countries, Keolis has annual turnover of €7.7 billion and employs more than 70,000 people. Amey is a €2.2 billion turnover engineering and operations company specialising in transport infrastructure.
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State agency TII began to seek a new operator for the contract in 2023 to operate and maintain the Luas service.
The deal was signed on Thursday, March 12th, TII said in a statement, with services expected to commence under the new contract from September 1st.
The new contract, the statement said, will provide for an “enhanced timetable with additional services at peak times to be introduced in 2027″.
The current Luas operations contract with Transdev was extended to September to facilitate the tendering process for the new contract.
The agency said it expected the vast majority of Luas staff will opt to transfer to KeolisAmey in accordance with the European Union regulations on the transfer of undertakings.
TII chief executive Lorcan O’Connor thanked Transdev for running the service, noting “they have helped shape the reliable, accessible service that is now synonymous with the city, allowing people to travel to where they live, work and socialise sustainably and with ease”.
He described the Luas as “the most successful transport infrastructure of our time, carrying 55 million passenger journeys in 2025 alone”.
The new contract with Keolis and Amey, he said, comes as the service is “procuring much-needed new trams to increase capacity and are prioritising the delivery of Luas extensions”.
“Luas Finglas is ready to progress to the next stage once funding is secured, with further plans in development for Lucan and Poolbeg.”
Minister for Transport Darragh O’Brien wished the new operators “the best of luck” and said the contract marked “an important step in delivering the Government’s ongoing programme to strengthen and expand sustainable public transport across Dublin”.
Among the other bidders was a joint venture between two infrastructure giants, Italy’s Azienda Trasporti Milanesi and French-listed Alstom, and the existing contract holder Transdev.
