Prasarana, the leading transport company in Malaysia, jerked the cost of the LRT3 project with demands for an additional financing of RM22 billion.
This is what the Ministry of Transport (MOT) of Malaysia said in a statement today.
It said the Minister of Finance was shocked by Prasarana Malaysia seeking an
additional financing of RM22 billion for the LRT3 project on March 30, 2018, on
top of the RM10 billion already secured earlier in 2015.
The project is now on, but not without a rigorous cost rationalisation plan, reducing the cost by 47% or RM15 billion from RM31.6 billion to RM16.6 billion.
The 37km LRT3 project is a critical project to alleviate the issue of traffic congestion along one of the most important and densely populated economic development corridor in the Klang Valley, from Klang to Petaling Jaya.
The reduced cost will mean higher operational viability and lower ticket fares.
Altogether, the revised specification of 22 sets of 3-car trains for the LRT3 project in Kuala Lumpur is more than sufficient to cater for the current ridership demand, says MOT.
The ministry statement said that during peak hours, the forecasted maximum number of passengers per hour per direction is 6,185 in Year 2034.
This ridership can be accommodated by 22 3-car trains which can carry 6,210 passengers per hour per direction.
Subsequently, additional 3-car trains can be purchased to increase capacity to meet ridership beyond Year 2050. The stations can cater for up to 4-car trains.
“The LRT3 system is so designed to be able to be upgraded from the present interval of 6 minutes to the shortest interval of 2 minutes and accommodate ridership of up to 18,630 pphpd during peak hour.
“This is approximately 7,000 passengers higher than the projected demand for the year 2050 (projected demand for 2050: 11,584 pphpd).”
The new LRT line is expected to serve a 2-million population with the capacity to transport 36,700 passengers per hour each way. In reducing the cost of the project by 47% or RM15 billion from RM31.6 billion to RM16.6 billion, it will mean higher operational viability and lower ticket fares.
“As a whole, we will like to emphasise the fact that the size of the stations and the capacity of the LRT trains have been reduced and streamlined purely because the Prasarana Malaysia management has instructed specifications well above the necessary requirement of an LRT system and the projected ridership,” the ministry said.