LIGHT RAIL Manila Corp. (LRMC) has signed a P450-million agreement with Voith Digital Solutions Austria GmBH and Co KG for the rehabilitation and upgrade of Light Rail Transit-1 (LRT-1) generation-2 trains.
In a statement, the operator and maintenance provider of the LRT-1 system said the Austrian company will re-engineer the 24 light rail vehicles (LRVs) of six train sets in the next two years.
“The rehabilitation of the 24 LRVs will expand capacity which should result in faster travel time because of reduced train headway and queueing time,” LRMC President Juan F. Alfonso said in a statement.
The project will be the first overhaul of the Generation 2 fleet’s propulsion system since the government bought the generation-2 trains from Hyundai and Adtranz Sweden in 1999, said LRMC.
The current fleet of LRT-1 includes 51 generation-1 LRVs bought in 1984, eight generation-2 LRVs bought in 1999, and 44 generation-3 LRVs bought in 2007. The Department of Transportation (DoTr) last month signed the procurement of 120 new LRVs for delivery in 2020.
LRMC has already completed the P1-billion rehabilitation of Generation 1 LRVs, which expanded the fleet, from 77 to 109 LRVs, and the number of daily trips from 498 to 554.
LRMC is the consortium of Ayala Corp., Metro Pacific Light Rail Corp., of Metro Pacific Investments Corp. and Macquarie Infrastructure Holdings (Philippines) Pte. Ltd.
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