building the lines, and with Ansaldo for delivery of the trains and operate the system the first five years. COMET was a consortium comprised Astaldi, Bachy, SAE, Ilbau, NCC Rasmussen & Schiøtz Anlæg and Tarmac Construction. Construction started in November 1996, with the moving of underground pipes and wires around the station areas. In August 1997, work commenced at the depot, and in September, COMET started the first mainline construction work. In October and November, the two tunnel boring machines (TMB), christened Liva and Bette, were delivered. They started digging each barrel of the tunnel from Islands Brygge in February 1998. The same month, the Public Transport Authority gave the necessary permits to operate a driverless metro. The section between Fasanvej and Frederiksberg is a former S-train line, and was last operated as such on 20 June 1998. The first section of tunnel was completed by September 1998, after which the TMBs moved to Havnegade. By December 1998, work had started on all the initial nine stations. Plans for M2 were presented to the public in April 1999, with a debate emerging if the proposed elevated solution was the best. In May, the first trains were delivered, and trial runs began at the depot. In December, the tunnels were completed to Strandlodsvej, and the TMBs were moved to Havnegade, where they started to grind towards Frederiksberg. From 1 January 2000, the S-train service from Solbjerg to Vanløse was terminated, and work to rebuild to metro started. By February 2001, all tunnels were finished. In March 2001, the Copenhagen County Council decided to start construction of stage 3. On 6 November 2001, the first train operates through a tunnel section and on 28 November, laying of tracks along stage 1 and stage 2A completed. An agreement about financing stage 3 was reached on 12 April. By 22 May, the 18 delivered trains had test-run . The section from Nørreport to Lergravsparken and Vestamager was opened on 19 October 2002. Initially, the system had a 12-minute headway on each of the two services. From 3 December this was reduced to 9 minutes, and from 19 December to 6 minutes. Operation of the system was subcontracted to Ansaldo, who again subcontracted it to Metro Service, a subsidiary of Serco. The contract had a duration of five years, with an option for extension for another three. Trial runs on the next section of metro,