MANILA, Philippines - Light Rail Manila Corp. (LRMC), a joint venture between Metro Pacific Investments Corp. and Ayala Corp. expects the LRT 1 to be able to accommodate up to 1.1 million passengers a day when it completes a plan to extend the existing railway route to Cavite.
LRMC president Jesus Francisco said the proposed 11.7-kilometer extension of LRT 1 would be from Baclaran to Bacoor.
Last Sept. 12, LRMC won the 32-year concession to operate and maintain LRT 1 and extend the line to Cavite.
LRMC is 55 percent owned by MPIC while 35 percent is held by the Ayala Group and the remaining 10 percent by the PINAI Fund.
“When we extend the line to Niyog, Cavite, that’s another 11.7 kilometers with eight passenger stations, three of them with intermodal facilities. We are moving to add 300,000 passengers per day,” Francisco said.
The existing LRT 1 can accommodate 500,000 passengers a day although the average count at present is only 400,000 because of the speed limitation of 40 kilometers per hour. The ideal speed would be 60 kph, which the company hopes to achieve upon completion of rehabilitation works and arrival of the new trains from the government within the next two years.
“In the next two years, we hope to get back to 60 kph,” Francisco said.
Planned improvements include providing facelifts on the existing passenger stations such from the Doroteo Jose stations to the Baclaran depot.
“We hope to improve the existing Baclaran depot. We are looking at what kind of upgrade we can do,” he said.
These include restoring lifts and elevators and replacing signaling and communications system.
The consortium will also build the Zapote Depot.
However, Francisco said the biggest challenge is the fleet.
“We’re now running a maximum of 28 trains and 85 LRVs (light rail vehicles). The improvement in the number of LRVs can be translated to better ridership and better revenues. Over the two-month period, we were able to arrest the deterioration of LRVs,” Francisco said.
He said the real improvements in the stations would be seen early next year.