MANILA, Philippines — Management of the Metro Rail Transit-Line 3 deployed its first-ever four-car CKD train set on the revenue line along with a China-made Dalian train set, and 17 other sets of 3-car CKD trains in the morning peak hours of the line's operation.
In a statement sent to reporters Tuesday morning, the department disclosed that two 4-car CKD train sets were deployed as early as 7:00 a.m. on Monday to help augment the line capacity in anticipation of an increase in ridership due to the launching of MRT-3's free rides program.
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At around 11:00 a.m., the MRT-3 successfully deployed a Dalian train set on its revenue line, the first time in months since the rail line commissioned a series of dynamic testing to ensure safe use for the train sets. Later 11:40 a.m., a total of 19 trains in three configurations — 4-car CKD, 3-car CKD and Dalian — were loading and safely carrying passengers to their destinations.
OIC-General Manager and Director for Operations Michael Capati said that this setup will be the target in the MRT-3 throughout the implementation of the free ride program.
READ: MRT-3's Free Ride Program: What you need to know
"We want to serve as many passengers as possible, that's why we really prepared for this scenario where more passengers can be served by MRT-3. All of that is an effect of our extensive rehabilitation, which we all upgraded. of subsystems-from tracks, power, signaling, our wagons, including the MRT-3 facilities," he said.
Each train car of both CKD and Dalian trains can load up to 394 passengers. A CKD or Dalian train set in three-car configuration can load up to 1,182 passengers, while a CKD and Dalian train set in 4-car configuration can carry up to 1,576 passengers.
Yesterday, during the first day of the line's free ride program, MRT-3 recorded a total of 281,507 ridership, the highest since the pandemic began.
This was an increase of 22,518 from the previous highest ridership of 258,989 under the pandemic that the MRT-3 recorded on 25 March 2022. Prior to the pandemic, the MRT-3 recorded an average of 250,000 to 300,000 daily ridership.
The 48 China-made Dalian trains procured by the previous administration, despite being delivered in 2016, mostly remained out of operation due to incompatibility concerns.
According to the MRT-3 general manager, nine Dalian trains are set to undergo what Capati called full acceptance testing, while the remaining 39 are also set to start their run testing in the coming months.
Capati said the MRT-3 management was looking at adding the trains to their main revenue line "as soon as possible."
"We want to give our passengers a glimpse of what we want MRT-3 to be in the future, and that's why we deployed four-cars which was the original intended configuration of our railway system," Capati also added.
The MRT-3's month-long free ride program, which passengers can avail of any time between MRT-3's operating hours from 4:40 a.m. to 10:10 p.m, will run until 30 April 2022.
The free ride program is in promotion of the rail line's massive rehabilitation. Management said it was also meant to ease the financial burden of passengers amid rising prices of fuel and other commodities.