Five groups vie for DOTC's P1.7-B LRT, MRT single ticket PPP

The Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) on Monday took another step forward in its public-private partnership (PPP) initiative, successfully taking in bids for its metro rail automated ticketing project. 

 

Five pre-qualified consortia filed their respective technical and financial bids for the P1.72 billion Automated Fare Collection System (AFCS) Project, the highest number of submissions so far for a PPP. 

 

The five consortia, including foreign partners, pre-qualified by the DOTC earlier this year are:

 

 

Companies that will make the technical bid hurdle will be announced on Dec. 9, said Transportation Undersecretary and head of the bids and awards committee Jose Perpetuo Lotilla.

 

If everyone qualifies, the DOTC will evaluate the financial bids within the next 15 days, Lotilla said, noting a disqualified bidder will have seven to 15 days to appeal. 

 

"If everything goes well, we can stick to the timeline," he added.

 

Earlier, the DOTC said it aims to award the contract by February next year, and targets full-implementation by the third quarter of 2015. 

 

According to the PPP Center, the agency overseeing the Aquino administration's flagship infrastructure program, the project involves replacing the Light Rail Transit (LRT) Lines 1 and 2 and the Metro Rail Transit (MRT) Line 3 ticketing system to a unified contactless-card technology from the current magnetic-based system. 

 

The project is envisioned to substantially lessen queuing time and allow seamless transfer from one rail line to another. 

 

After bidders found contract parameters too strict, the DOTC last August declared a failure of bidding for the LRT 1  rehabilitation and extension to Cavite. It was the most expensive PPP project in the pipeline at P59.2-billion. 

 

LRT 1 is Southeast Asia's first mass rail transit system. 

 

The rebidding of the rail rehabilitation  and extension project is expected to happen in the first quarter of 2014. 

 

Due to stringent project reviews and disagreements between the private and public sectors, only four projects – two toll roads and two nationwide classroom construction projects – with a combined value of P43 billion have so far been awarded nearly three years after the program was unveiled in November 2010. – VS, GMA News