DOTr scraps plan to merge LRT-1, MRT-3 contracts

MANILA, Philippines —  The Department of Transportation (DOTr) has dropped its plan to consolidate the operations and maintenance of two railways in Metro Manila, as the supposed proponent of the project failed to submit an offer.

Acting Transportation Secretary Giovanni Lopez yesterday said the DOTr is abandoning its plan to combine the concession agreements for the Light Rail Transit Line 1 (LRT-1) and Metro Rail Transit Line 3 (MRT-3).

He said the private group that had committed to develop an unsolicited proposal is no longer interested in the project.

Thus, the DOTr has given approval to the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) Center to begin market sounding for the operations and maintenance of MRT-3 to raise investor interest in the railway prior to the bidding process.

“(We are doing} solicited bidding. The unsolicited proposal that we were expecting is no longer forthcoming,” Lopez told The STAR.

The future concessionaire of MRT-3 will run the operations and maintenance of the country’s busiest railway, ensuring that daily services go uninterrupted given how important it is to Metro Manila.

Further, the operator will be in charge of managing the MRT-3 side of the Unified Grand Central Station, which is scheduled to open in 2027, and introduce the Dalian trains into the line.

Apart from this, the concessionaire will invest in MRT-3’s refleeting by purchasing new train cars and retiring old ones.

In exchange, the operator will earn from the fare collection in MRT-3, which in 2025 handled 141.63 million passengers. At this level, MRT-3 is ferrying around 388,000 passengers daily, the busiest traffic among railways in Metro Manila.

MRT-3’s passenger count is expected to reach as high as 700,000 daily. The railway will be sending out China-made Dalian trains soon to boost car supply and meet the additional demand.

Recently, the DOTr has finished the rehabilitation of MRT-3, which covered the replacement of tracks and refurbishment of the depot, including turnouts.

The program also repaired all of the train cars on the line, restoring them to their original speed of 60 kilometers per hour to bring down wait times to just 3.5 minutes.