MITSUBISHI has awarded a consortium led by Colas Rail a €1bn contract to design and build the turnkey rail system for the first underground metro line in Manila. 

The Pesos 370.1bn ($US 7.19bn) 35km line will run from East Valenzuela in northern Manila to Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 3, with 15 stations. The line is forecast to carry 370,000 passengers a day in the first year of full operation when it opens in 2027, and will reduce the journey time by an hour compared with road. The project is partially funded through a $US 5.13bn loan from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (Jica).

The Department of Transportation (DOTr) awarded Mitsubishi a Yen 140bn ($US 1.2bn) contract to supply the integrated railway systems and trackwork for the line on February 14.

DOTr announced on March 8 that underground work on the line is due to begin in the third quarter of this year, with the first tunnel boring machine (TBM) to be lowered by May. The first two of 25 TBMs for the project arrived in the Philippines in February 2021.

The contract is the first secured by Colas Rail in the Philippines and is worth €760m for the company. Colas Rail will be responsible for engineering and system integration, including track, CBTC, power distribution, overhead lines, and depot equipment.

Egis’ involvement in the project is divided into two major components. Along with Colas Rail, Egis will be responsible for preliminary design of the electrical and mechanical systems. Egis will also manage and lead the delivery phase of the system integration and interface activities, the system assurance, and the testing and commissioning of all the metro systems including track, signalling, telecommunication, power supply and distribution, automated fare collection, platform screen doors, maintenance vehicles and depot equipment. Egis says this work will be delivered by its local team in the Philippines, supported by experts and engineers from the Regional Technical Center in Thailand.

Egis will also be responsible for the procurement, supply and installation of more than 1300 full-height platform screen doors, from design to testing and commissioning, including procurement and installation management.

Thales will design and develop the integrated and secure communications networks, including radio, multi service network, wayside telephone and Wi-Fi, as well as wayside equipment for security systems such as CCTV and video analytics features. It will also supply the passenger information and public address, the digital supervision solution as well as the centralised power supervisory control and data acquisition system.

Thales will also provide automatic fare collection as part of its share of the project, which is worth €156m.

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