The President of Philippines Rodrigo Roa Duterte, and with Department of Transportation (DOTr) Secretary Arthur Tugade, have celebrated the completion of MRT-3 rehabilitation project in Manila Metro. The ceremony was held at the Shaw Boulevard station in Mandaluyong City on March 22, 2022 when the officials took a train ride from Shaw Boulevard station to Santolan station, and vice versa.
The modernised line and its systems will allow faster efficient, convenient and comfortable public transport services. Due to the improvement works each train can operate to a maximum speed of 60 km/h from 25-30 km/h and this also provides an increased train frequency to a 4-minute interval between trains, instead of 9 minutes.
Travel time from North Avenue to Taft Avenue will now take only 45 minutes from the previous 1 hour and 15 minutes, and a total of 23 trains are now running compared to only less than 10 trains prior to line’s rehabilitation works when the trains were allowed to carry 70% of the maximum passenger capacity. The project also has contributed to an increase of its ridership capacity from 200,000 passengers per day to 600,000 passengers per day.
The MRT-3 underwent a comprehensive rehabilitation and upgrade which included the replacing of all rail tracks, the upgrade of signalling systems, the communications and CCTV systems, repair of all station escalators and elevators, and the successful installation of air conditioning units inside the trains.
The project also included the upgrade of line’s power supply, overhead catenary system, stations and depot facilities and equipment.
The MRT-3 rehabilitation project started in May 2019 and was undertaken by its original contractor and maintenance provider, Japan’s Sumitomo Corporation and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. The line has faced poor maintenance and degradation and the consortium, as the original contractor which also maintained the line for 12 years was able to restore MRT3’s high quality design condition.
The MRT-3 became operational at the end of 1999 on a 16.9 km double track line served by 13 stations from North Avenue in Quezon City to Taft Avenue in Pasay City.
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