MANILA, Philippines — The maintenance and rehabilitation of the Metro Rail Transit Line 3 (MRT-3) has been formally handed over to the consortium of Sumitomo Corporation, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI), and TES Philippines (TESP).
In a ceremony at the MRT-3 depot in Quezon City on Tuesday, officials of the Department of Transportation (DOTr) and the MRT Transition Team (MTT) including Undersecretary for railways Timothy John Batan and MRT-3 General Manager Rodolfo Garcia witnessed the signing of contracts, which signified the transfer.
The consortium will officially start their work on Tuesday night, as MRT-3 trains return to docking stations after operations stop.
“This afternoon, we are going to witness a very important event here in MRT-3. Actually, it will be a historic event, because after seven years, Sumitomo Corporation is again back with us,” Garcia said.
According to Batan, the project was based on a government-to-government cooperation between Japan and the Philippines. He also noted that the rehabilitation process will span 24 months, but the whole contract will take 43 months.
“This is the official handover, official full start of work, May 1, zero hundred hours is the official service’s start date, but even before, as early as November last year, we have been doing transition discussions,” he explained.
In forging this contract, MRT-3 management brought back the maintenance teams which had the least service interruption and malfunction since it took over in 1997 up to 2012.
MRT-3 claimed that zero major accidents were recorded in 374 months when Sumitomo and Mitsubishi were overseeing maintenance operations, aside from only four broken rail incidents.
Prior to the signing of a contract agreement among the companies and DOTr last December 2018 to rehabilitate the rail system, MRT-3 was managed by Global APT.
READ: Sumitomo back on track with MRT 3
Global APT was the maintenance provider when an MRT-3 train overshot past Taft Avenue Station, injuring at least 36 passengers. According to MRT-3, other incidents in 2014 and 2013 left several injured after an MRT train suddenly stopped and a train car collided with another train.
Also, there were 22 broken rail failures under Global APT. Then, when MRT-3 was maintained by PH Trams – CB&T, a short circuit caused a fire inside the middle section of one train, plus 11 broken rail failures. /je