MRT maintenance deal with Sumitomo extended

The Department of Transportation and Communications (DoTC) has renewed for nine more months its maintenance contract with Japan’s Sumitomo Corp. for the Metro Rail Transit (MRT) line on EDSA.

The MRT’s maintenance is handled by Japanese industrial conglomerate Sumitomo, which in turn subcontracts the work to TES-Philippines.

But MRT general manager Al Vitangcol III said the DoTC had demanded that the company perform better before its contract, worth an estimated P1 billion a year, would be renewed.

“We increased the number of items on their check list of deliverables,” he told the Inquirer. “There’s no additional burden to the government for this. We’re spending the same amount but we will get more from the company.”

Frequent breakdowns of the overworked MRT trains earlier prompted the DoTC to put the blame on the quality of work done by TES.

Transportation Secretary Manuel “Mar” Roxas II earlier said that under the provisions of its previous contract, TES was only required to make sure that 18 trains were running at any given time before any penalties were to be handed out.

The DoTC said this arrangement worked when the train line first opened.

Today, due to heavy passenger traffic, at least 23 trains were needed at any given time. But because of its contract, TES had the luxury of not keeping all the needed trains running without being penalized.

Close to half a million passengers take the MRT every day, or much higher than its original capacity of 350,000.

Vitangcol, a former director of the Aquino administration’s Public Private Partnership (PPP) Center, said the stricter provisions in TES’ contract was just one of several reforms to be implemented this year to ensure that passengers were not inconvenienced when taking the MRT.

He said small steps, such as the removal of unwanted advertisements and the repainting of MRT facilities would make commuting a more pleasant experience for the public. “We are rehabilitating all the MRT stations to make it better for commuters,” he said.

He said the DoTC would improve its crowd management at stations, especially during rush hour, to ensure that people were able to buy their tickets and board trains easily. He said these improvements could be easily implemented at minimal cost to taxpayers.