Ayala-MPIC submits best bid for rail ticketing project

MANILA, Philippines - The tandem of conglomerate Ayala Corp. and infrastructure giant Metro Pacific Investments Corp. (MPIC) yesterday submitted the best bid for the P1.72-billion single ticketing system project for the Metro Rail Transit (MRT) and the Light Rail Transit (LRT).

The AF Consortium submitted a negative bid of P1,088,103,900 for the Automated Fare Collection System (AFCS) project during the opening of bids conducted by the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) followed by the negative P1,088,000,000 bid of the SM Consortium of retail magnate Henry Sy. The AF Consortium bid was P103,900 better than SM Consortium’s bid.

On the other hand, the Comworks-Berjaya Consortium submitted a bid of P2.050 billion.

Transportation Undersecretary Jose Perpetuo Lotilla said the opening of the financial bids submitted by the three groups was only the first step in determining the winning bidder.

Lotilla explained that the agency’s special bids and awards committee (SBAC) would still have to evaluate the financial bids over the next 15 days assuming other bidders would not file motions for reconsideration.

Assuming compliance with all the requirements set by the DOTC, he said the lowest bid wins.

Michael Arthur Sagcal, DOTC spokesperson, said the negative bids submitted by the AF Consortium and the SM Group mean that they would pay the government to undertake the project.

“Negative bid means that the bidder is proposing to pay the government to do the project,” Sagcal said.

The winning proponent with a negative bid, he said, would have to pay the government over the 10-year concession period.

According to him, the target date for the announcement

of the winning bidder is either on Dec. 23 or 24 and the notice to proceed would be issued in the first week of January.

Sagcal added that the contract signing for the project is scheduled on the last week of January and the full implementation of the project is on the third quarter of 2015.

All the five prequalified groups submitted technical bids and financial bids for Public -Private Partnership (PPP) project last Nov. 18.

However, the E-Trans Solutions Joint Venture Inc. and Megawide-Suyen-Eurolink Consortium failed to hurdle the agency’s technical evaluation.

The winning consortium has the option to expand the contactless card system to other businesses in and out of the transportation sector such as in retail transactions. It would provide a service offering that better suit the needs of the passengers through a system similar to Hong Kong, London, the Netherlands, and other countries.

The MRT-LRT single ticket is envisioned to be like Hong Kong’s Octopus Card, which serves as a debit card, aside from being a stored-value train ticket. The single ticket could also be used for other modes of transportation such as buses, paying toll, electronic banking, and even shopping.

The AFCS project would bring important benefits to the more than one million daily passengers using the light rail lines ensuring seamless interconnection for travelers and removing the current inconvenience of the need to buy separate tickets for separate lines.

It would replace the current magnetic based ticketing system that is very much at the end of its usability and could also serve as an electronic micropayment solution in convenience stores, or as identifier for loyalty schemes, facility access and location based services as well as other transport modes including buses and taxi cabs.

The riding public has long urged government to implement a common ticketing system for the LRT Lines 1 and 2 and the MRT 3 as the different ticketing schemes employed in the three mass transport systems have been blamed for the long lines of passengers buying tickets at the train stations.

The MRT line that runs from Baclaran in Pasay City to North Ave. in Quezon City services around 600,000 passengers per day way above its capacity of 350,000.

On the other hand, LRT Line 1, which runs from Baclaran in Pasay City to Roosevelt in Quezon City, serves at least 500,000 passengers daily while the LRT Line 2, which operates from Recto in Manila to Santolan in Pasig City, caters to 350,000.