BEFORE the new long-term maintenance provider for the Metro Rail Transit (MRT) Line 3 comes on board, the transportation department targets to mount as much as 15 trains—coming from a seven set-low—through the procurement of new spare parts.
Transportation Undersecretary Timothy John R. Batan was quoted in a transcript sent by the agency as saying that his group is working to make more trains work to prepare the system for the new maintenance provider in May.
“Our target is to have 15 working trains before the three-year contractor comes in,” he said.
Currently, the average number of trains that operate during revenue hours on the system is just eight—more than half of the rated capacity of the railway line.
These eight trains ferry roughly 300,000 passengers daily, a huge drop from the 550,000 passengers that it used to serve in the last half- decade. For context, the train system has a rated capacity of 350,000 daily passengers with 21 train sets.
Queues to get inside the station have also reached kilometric rates, not to mention the next line that passengers have to hurdle just to get inside a jam-packed train car.
The Department of Transportation aims to have a new maintenance provider for the railway system in the next three months.
“We lack in spare parts—the very reason why we scrambled to procure more spare parts,” Batan said.
Spare parts for the maintenance of MRT 3 started arriving this month. Others that were procured will arrive in June. The procurement started last November.
These spare parts will be used by the maintenance transition team composed of engineers and employees of the DOTr and the former maintenance provider Busan Universal Rail Inc.
The new maintenance provider, according to a spokesman from the transportation department, will be a Japanese contractor nominated by the Japan International Cooperation Agency. Most likely, it will be Sumitomo Corp., the builder of the railway system, “for technical continuity.”
“Included in the contract for the three-year maintenance is the overhaul of the old train cars,” Batan said.
Japanese railway engineers and experts from Japan have started the due diligence and system audit of the MRT 3.
The government, including the previous administration, has tried and failed to implement viable solutions to the growing and ever-present woes of the railway system.
Today’s solution now includes the review of an unsolicited proposal from Metro Pacific Investments Corp., an infrastructure holding company led by businessman Manuel V. Pangilinan.
The P30-billion proposal involves the expansion of the capacity of the railway system by adding more coaches to each train, allowing it to carry more cars at faster intervals. It will double the capacity of the line to 700,000 passengers a day.
The multimillion-dollar expansion is deemed as an all-encompassing deal, including the improvement of the reliability of rolling stock, the upgrading of power supply, the upgrading of stations, and the replacement of rails, which will allow the company to operate the new trains purchased by the government from Chinese train manufacturer Dalian.
Unsolicited proposals are required, under law, to go under a Swiss Challenge, wherein other groups can offer a similar proposal, and the original proponent can present a counter offer.
But for MRT Holdings Inc. (MRTH) Chairman Robert John L. Sobrepeña, what needs to be done is for the government to honor the contract that it signed with MRT Corp. (MRTC) almost two decades ago.
MRTC, which is controlled by MRTH, holds the concession for the build-lease-transfer (BLT) contract for the MRT 3.
“Go back to the contract and follow it—it means negotiating with MRTC and Sumitomo as specified in our contract,” he told the BusinessMirror.