DOTr eyes 15 running MRT trains after Holy Week

From the present three to nine MRT trains running during peak hours, the Department of Transportation (dotR) expects to improve it to at least 10 by the end of February following the delivery of spare parts needed to maintain the trains.

At a hearing in the Senate on Tuesday, Transportation Undersecretary for Rails Timothy John Batan said this is possible only if none of the running trains will conk out.

"Ang projection namin, so long na walang ma-down na additional train for the rest of February, we will have spare parts arriving that would allow us to bring the number of trains back to 10 ngayong end of February," Batan told Senator Grace Poe during the hearing of the Senate Committee on Public Services.

Batan said they expect to have 15 running trains after the three and a half days shutdown during the Holy Week, although he admitted that to serve the 550,000 daily peak hour passengers, 20 trains should be running.

Spare parts

Batan said they have established a Special Bids and Awards Committee to expedite the procurement of spare parts.

"Since we took over last November 6, we established a Special Bids and Awards Committee to fast-track procurement of the contract to gradually restore 'yung mga tren," he told the committee.

"As of December 29, we have completed the procurement of first batch of spare parts, the delivery lead time for that first batch is 30 days to six months."

Batan said most of the spare parts they ordered were for the signaling system "because one of the three factors in failure incident is the signaling system."

"We really need to stack up on spare parts for  signaling and there are a lot of signaling sub-components that needs restoration," he said.

Batan said the DOTr signed an agreement with Bombadier, a manufacturer of train parts, on February 6 for the parts and maintenance of the signaling system.

"Contract 1 will be for the re-stacking of the spare parts. Contract 2 will be a maintenance contract. They will restore our signaling system to a more reliable state," he said.

Batan said the supplier requested that they be given seven weeks to deliver the spare parts but the DOTr appealed that they deliver it as soon as available.

He said around P400 million will be needed for the upgrade of the entire signaling system. Once the spare parts are delivered, Bombadier needs six months to fix the signaling system.

Sumitomo

When Poe asked about getting Sumitomo as the maintenance provider, Batan said they are still negotiating with the help of the Japan government.

"With the help of Japan and a lot of help from the diplomatic level. On January 9, we already exchanged note verbale between the two governments,” he said.

He added that the system audit by Japan International Cooperation Agency engineers is ongoing, and that they expect to receive the audit report by March 15.

"After that, we will know what needs to be done then we are going to go to next step which is  to negotiate and finalize the terms of the Official Development Assistance and the appointment process for the service provider," Batan said.

He also said that it would take DOTr two years to replace all the railway tracks of MRT3. He said the replacement would take time because of the limited time they have to work on it.

"We only have a window, non-revenue hours at night when we can do these replacements," Batan said.  —KBK, GMA News