Government completes rehab of MRT-3 cars

MANILA, Philippines — Commuters can expect train availability at the Metro Rail Transit Line 3 to improve after the Department of Transportation (DOTr) completed the rehabilitation of all the MRT-3’s train cars.

The DOTr yesterday said that it has received the final set of the 72 train cars of the MRT-3 that it sent to the maintenance yard for repair.

With this, the DOTr said it has finished the overhaul of the 23-year-old railway three months ahead of its target in May.

The DOTr said the MRT-3 may now deploy up to 21 train sets during peak hours to serve the rising ridership with the return of the onsite schooling and work. Prior to the overhaul, the MRT-3 was limited to sending a maximum of 15 rail vehicles.

Transportation Secretary Jaime Bautista said the rehabilitation also cut the waiting time between trains to four minutes from the previous interval of 9.5 minutes.

The overhaul also increased the speed of train cars to 60 kilometers per hour, from 30 kph, slashing travel time from end to end to just 45 minutes from 1.25 hours.

Last year, the DOTr completed the Japan-funded rehabilitation work on the MRT-3. To showcase the improvement, then president Rodrigo Duterte implemented a free ride service in the MRT-3 for nearly three months. President Marcos stopped the service due to a lack of funding.

The trio of Sumitomo Corp., Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Inc. and TES Philippines is contracted to assess and rehabilitate the rail line. The group was responsible for designing and building the MRT-3 system and had maintained the railway since 2000 until its contract expired in 2012.

Under a new contract with the government, the consortium was tasked to upgrade the MRT-3 subsystems by replacing its revenue tracks as well as modernizing its signaling system.

Based on records, the MRT-3 saw its total ridership more than double to 98.33 million in 2022 from 45.69 million in 2021, attributed to the return of face-to-face learning and work.