Although the all-Egyptian joint venture employed French subcontractors for the line’s railroad systems, it believes experience from its overall project management will reduce future reliance on foreign expertise. Until then, French contractors and designers had led all the main work on what was the African continent’s first metro system, which crosses central Cairo below ground.

The project team says it performed more than 5.7 million worker hours without a lost-time incident. Line 3’s first 4.3-km phase, with five underground stations, began operation in 2012. Its 7.7-km second phase with four stations followed two years later. Work on the 17.7-km third phase of Line 3 continues. Meanwhile, the first part of the line’s nearly 16-km-long fourth phase was completed in 2019. Phase 4B was inaugurated by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in August 2020.