Prasarana to award tenders for RM9 billion LRT 3 project

Prasarana Malaysia Bhd expects to start awarding tenders for the RM9 billion Light Rail Transit Line 3 (LRT 3) project in the second half of the year.

Group managing director, Azmi Abdul Aziz, said the number of packages to be awarded was still undecided but the plan was to offer as many as possible to attract significant participation.

"We will work hard to complete the civil engineering design and the systems so that we can open for tender. We expect the tenders to be awarded either in the third or fourth quarter," he told a press conference on the coming 16th International Association of Public Transport (UITP) Asia-Pacific Assembly.

On the progress of the project, Azmi said preliminary works had started and Prasarana would organise a media session soon to announce which tender applicants made it through the pre-qualification round.

The 37km LRT 3 would have 26 stations, with 2km of the alignment to be underground.

Azmi said Prasarana was committed to improve the quality of local rail services and it aimed to increase riderships by two percent per annum, driven by the completion of the LRT extension projects.

However, the ongoing extension projects had caused a few glitches to its services, he said.

"I would like to apologise to the public because of the glitches in the Ampang and Kelana Jaya lines due to our upgrading works," he said.

Meanwhile, he said, the 16th UITP Asia-Pacific Assembly, to be held on May 17-18, would gather over 300 key players in the public transport industry from Asia-Pacific, Europe and North America to discuss challenges as well as new initiatives to improve services.

The event, themed "On An Upwards Trajectory: The Journey & Growth of Public Transport in Asia-Pacific", will be jointly hosted by UITP and Prasarana.