LRT adjusts schedule for systems upgrading

MANILA, Philippines — Light Rail Manila Corp. (LRMC) is making adjustments on the operating hours of the Light Rail Transit Line 1 starting late next month to accommodate systems upgrading.

Starting July 29, LRMC said the last train would depart from Baclaran, Parañaque (northbound) at 9:30 p.m. and from Roosevelt Ave. in Quezon City (southbound) at 9:45 p.m. every night.

First trips schedule remains at 4:30 a.m. for both directions, the company said.

At present, the last northbound commercial train leaves Baclaran terminal for Roosevelt Station at 9:30 p.m., while the last southbound commercial train leaves Roosevelt Station for Baclaran Station at 10 p.m.

LRMC operations director Bobby San Jose said the system upgrade and rehabilitation work will include the replacement of the auxiliary power supply and train control and monitoring system, among many others.

This developed as commuters of the Metro Rail Transit 3 (MRT-3) complained yesterday morning of delayed trains apparently brought about by a still undetermined technical problem at its Ortigas station. 

The MRT-3 said that the trains were running slower than their usual travel speed before noon after a southbound train suffered a technical problem upon reaching Ortigas station. 

Commuters waited for their trains until the operations normalized at around 11:55 a.m. 

San Jose said the system upgrade will be undertaken for improved safety and reliability of train service.

“We want to give our commuters a quality transportation that they deserve. And to be able to provide them a safe, reliable, efficient and comfortable journey, we need to update and upgrade our signaling system,” San Jose said.

Despite the train timetable adjustment, LRMC said the LRT-1 system would still have more than 17 operating hours that is compliant to the minimum timetabled revenue service hours on normal weekdays.

LRMC targets to finish all maintenance and rehabilitation works by October next year.

The LRT-1 currently has 20 stations spanning from Roosevelt Station to Baclaran.

It is operated by the LRMC consortium composed of Metro Pacific Investments Corp.’s Metro Pacific Light Rail Corp., Ayala Corp.’s AC Infrastructure Holdings Corp. and Macquarie Infrastructure Holdings (Philippines) PTE Ltd.

The consortium was awarded the public-private partnership project to operate, maintain and extend the LRT-1 in 2014.

An extension being planned will stretch LRT-1 over 33 kilometers from Roosevelt in Quezon City to Niog, Bacoor in Cavite City, and is seen to cut travel time from Bacoor to Central Station in Manila to 45 minutes, and to Roosevelt Station in one hour and 10 minutes, even during rush hours. – With Robertzon Ramirez