MRT to extend operating hours to serve growing number of commuters

(Updated 3:07 p.m.) While waiting for the Makati regional trial court to lift its hold order on the purchase of additional coaches for the Metro Rail Transit (MRT), the government will apply some remedies, including the extension of operating hours of the MRT line along EDSA (MRT-3).

 

The MRT-3 will extend operating hours beginning Monday, February 24, to serve the growing number of passengers, according to a GMA News report. 

 

 

The Department of Transportation and Communications announced that for the first two work weeks, MRT-3 will operate starting at these hours instead of the usual 5:30 a.m.:

 

And beginning March 10, MRT-3 will extend its hours up to 10:30 p.m. from the North Avenue station and 11 p.m. from the Taft Avenue station, DOTC spokesman Atty. Michael Arthur Sagcal said.

 

New trains

 

Forty-eight brand new trains for the MRT-3 are supposed to augment the current fleet of the said railway system, but a court order has stopped this action.

 

On January 30, 2014 the Makati City RTC Branch 66 issued a 20-day temporary restraining order against the implementation of the MRT-3 extension project. 

 

The court order put on hold the DOTC's P3.8-billion project that seeks to add 48 brand new trains to MRT-3. 

 

The Makati RTC noted that the project has not been properly authorized by the Metro Rail Transit Corp., the private consortium that runs MRT-3 under a BLT (build-lease-transfer) agreement. 

 

Metro Rail Transit System Line 3 General Manager Atty. Al Vitangcol III, however, believes adding trains will be the ultimate solution to the problem of long lines of commuters daily.

 

“Ang solution lang talaga para maibsan itong mahabang pila at para mabawasan 'yung matagal na paghihintay nila ay ang pagdadagdag lang ng mga bagong bagon sa MRT3,” Vitangcol said in the GMA News report.

 

540,000 commuters per day

 

On a normal workday, the MRT with a capacity of 540,000 passengers exceeds its daily limit by 20,000 people.

 

Right now, it takes about four to five minutes and even at least six minutes during peak hours for each train to arrive at a station. Each train has a capacity of 1,182 passengers.

 

This is below par compared to the international standard of a two-minute waiting time, according to MRT management.

 

To help make the trains run faster, MRT management plans to conduct rail grinding and replacement projects.

 

"We hope that the order preventing us from adding brand new LRVs will be lifted immediately, for the public’s sake… EDSA traffic should be mitigated considerably,"  DOTC Spokesperson Michael Arthur Sagcal said in a statement released on Tuesday. 

 

He explained that under the P3.8-billion project, the trains' 20 trips per hour will be increased to 24. It will service an estimated 37,824 passengers one way from the current 23,640 people.

 

"The Project will not only help ease the gridlock on EDSA, it will also make the MRT-3 experience much more bearable for its riders," the statement said.

 

Sagcal clarified that if the MRT-3 expansion project would be pursued, it will take about two to three years to be completed because the trains will still have to be manufactured. 

 

"A prototype will be tested on the system within 12 to 18 months, followed by the delivery of three to four units per succeeding month. This means that traffic decongestion can already start by 2015," he explained. 

 

"All we’re waiting for is the court’s go signal.”

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