The Department of Transportation (DOTr) said Tuesday it deployed a four-car Dalian train on the Metro Rail Transit Line-3.
This comes after it passed safety checks, following the President’s order to make passenger travel faster and more comfortable, it said in a statement.
It said that with the new train, passenger queues would be reduced further as the capacity of each Dalian train set would increase by 500.
The DOTr said the Dalian train would operate during rush hour or from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.
DOTr Secretary Vince Dizon earlier said that six more Dalian train cars were expected to be operational before the end of the year, while the remaining 42 train cars are on track to be deployed next year.
Dizon had asked MRT-3 Sumitomo Corp. to fast-track the testing of unused Dalian light rail vehicles (LRVs) to expand the capacity of the rail system,
The DOTr extended the contract of Sumitomo to rehabilitate and maintain the MRT-3 for another year. In May 2023, the DOTr, Sumitomo and Oriental Consultants Global signed a P7.38-billion extended contract for the rehabilitation and maintenance of the line until July 2025.
The scope of the new contract was expanded to include the extension of rail lines and the installation of signals to the common station, which is shared with other lines, and the expansion of the pocket track necessary for increasing the number of railcars in a train (from three-car to four-car), in addition to the maintenance of the main line.
