(Eagle News) – The Metro Rail Transit raised the number of operational trains today to 15 after its annual maintenance this weekend, and hopes it can further increase this to 20 eventually.
As of 2:10 on Monday, April 2, 2018, the MRT reported that it had 15 operational and running trains.
The last time that the MRT-3 was able to field 15 running trains was on January 5 this year.
“This will partially address the problem of long queues, but there will still be some lines,” said Undersecretary for Railways, Timothy John Batan, in a statement released by MRT-3 media relations officer Aly Narvaez.
But the department is still hoping it can achieve its target of 20 trains per day.
“Our next target is to increase the availability to 20 trains when the new rehabilitation and maintenance service provider comes in. But we expect that the more we increase capacity, the more people will come,” the MRT statement said.
The maximum ridership of the MRT is 622,880 passengers which was recorded in August 2012. With 15 trains of a three-car configuration, this can accommodate 405,000 passengers per day.
With 20 trains in a three-car configuration, the carrying capacity will increase to 540,000 passengers per day, according to Narvaez.
“Hence, even if we increase the availability to 20 trains, this is expected to only partially address the lines,” the MRT-3 statement said.
“To finally address queues, we need to achieve our later targets of 20 trains of 4-car configuration which can carry 720,000 passengers per day, and eventually 25 trains with 4 cars each set which can carry 900,000 passengers per day,” it said.
“However, the path and timing towards these targets will depend on the outcome of the TUV Rheinland audit of the Dalian trains,” it added.
The MRT-3 management hopes to keep moving forward towards “25 x 4 operating trains.”
“That’s progress that little by little our MRT-3 riders will feel,” the MRT-3 statement added.
(Earlo Bringas, Eagle News Service)
