The Department of Transportation (DOTr) plans to roll out the bidding for the operations and maintenance (O&M) of two big-ticket railway projects in the second half of 2024, an official said over the weekend.
DOTr Undersecretary for planning Timothy John Batan said the agency would separately bid out the O&M of Metro Manila Subway Project and the North-South Commuter Railway (NSCR).
“We will be very busy this year. Coming from the heels of our NAIA PPP turning out to be a massive success, so we will replicate what we did for NAIA,” Batan said.
Batan said the construction of the subway is in full speed. “We’re expecting the first segment to be completed in 2027, and the full operations by 2029,” he said.
Civil works are ongoing for the 36-kilometer Metro Manila Subway Project. With 17 stations, the project is set to reduce travel time between Valenzuela City and Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) Terminal 3 from 1 hour and 30 minutes to 35 minutes.
The P488.5-billion project is also expected to serve around 370,000 passengers a day in its first year of full operations, with capacity to serve up to 1 million passengers a day in later years.
The MMSP is physically interconnected and interoperable with the North-South Commuter Railway System’s south segment, enabling a passenger to board a subway train, for example, in North Ave. Station of MMSP and get off at the Calamba station of NSCR.
Meanwhile, the NSCR is expected to begin partial operations from west Valenzuela to Malolos in the second quarter of 2027, while full operation will start in the third quarter of 2029.
A flagship project under the Build Better More Program, the NSCR is a mega railway network spanning 148-km., with 37 stations and 464 train cars, and encompassing three segments—the PNR Clark Phase 1 (Tutuban-Malolos), PNR Clark Phase 2 (Malolos-Clark) and PNR Calamba (Solis-Calamba).
The mass transport project, which stretches across 26 cities and municipalities within the three regions of Central Luzon, National Capital Region and Calabarzon, is slated to serve over a million passengers daily, once fully operational.
The project aims to reduce travel time between Clark, Pampanga and Calamba, Laguna to just two hours and service over 800,000 passengers daily once operational.