Prasarana shortlists 28 for MRT works

KUALA LUMPUR: Syarikat Prasarana Negara Bhd, the project owner of Malaysia's biggest rail infrastructure project, My Rapid Transit (MRT), has shortlisted 28 individual and joint-venture companies that can bid for various elevated civil works, stations and depot packages under the multi-billion ringgit project.

In a statement yesterday, Prasarana group managing director Shahril Mokhtar said these tenders would be called in stages beginning from next month until December 2012.

"Tender for the first stage, which involves two civil works packages, will be issued early next month," Shahril said.

The two packages are a 5.4km stretch from Taman Bukit Ria to Plaza Phoenix in Cheras and the other covering a 5.2km stretch from Taman Suntex to Bandar Tun Hussein Onn.
There are 18 packages with eight packages under elevated civil works, another eight for elevated station works and two for depot.

These packages are divided into two categories - the open category and the Bumiputera category.

Applicants were evaluated based on their financial capabilities, track record, experiences, existing management staff and key personnel, the average annual construction turnover in the last five years, their existing plant and equipment as well as their existing quality, safety, health and environment practices.

For joint-venture submissions, technical and financial evaluations were carried out on the individual companies with the total score of their technical and financial points combined based on their equity percentage.

The pre-qualification exercise attracted strong response with 286 companies purchasing the tender document which was opened through two public advertisements by Prasarana with a total of 195 companies submitting their appli-cations.

Hailed as the country's biggest infrastructure project as part of the Greater Klang Valley Master Plan, the MRT would provide the backbone service to the existing public transportation system and would be integrated with the existing LRT, KL Monorail and KTM services. 

To cut through the city centre from Sungai Buloh to Kajang, the new MRT will run for some 51km including 9.5km through underground tunnels and will be serviced by 27 elevated stations and seven stations underground; and depots at Sungai Buloh and Kajang. 

"Tenders for the other packages will be announced in due course," added Shahril.

Study on KL-S'pore high-speed rail

KUALA LUMPUR: A pre-feasibility study for Kuala Lumpur-Singapore high-speed rail (HSR) system will be concluded in a few weeks, Performance Management and Delivery Unit (Pemandu) director Ahmad Suhaili said.

“The findings of this study will allow the Government to decide on where to place key stations.

“However, a more detailed study would have to follow to further refine the project's plan,” he said at a briefing on half-year results for six focus areas in the Government Transformation Programme.

Ahmad heads both the Urban Public Transport national key results area (NKRA) and Greater Kuala Lumpur and Klang Valley national key economic area (NKEA).

It was also revealed that the My Rapid Transit (MRT) system will have independent monitors to ensure proper delivery and governance of the RM20bil intra-city rail project.

Pemandu director for Corruption NKRA Ravindran Devagunam said the monitoring would be from “cradle to the grave”, adding that the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission and the Auditor-General (AG) would be the monitors from the public sector.

He said this would be the first time the AG was involved in the oversight mechanism at the beginning of a project rather than at the end, which was the usual practice.

Pemandu is also looking at enlisting professional bodies, engineers and non-governmental organisations as independent monitors for the MRT.

In March, the Land Public Transport Commission, which oversees the implementation of the MRT and HSR, announced the appointment of consulting firm McKinsey as the Government's value management study consultant to scrutinise the plans and obtain optimum cost efficiency for the MRT.

The MRT and HSR are both large-scale projects under the Economic Transformation Programme.

The HSR, estimated to cost RM8bil to RM14bil, will stretch about 400km and reduce travelling time between KL and Singapore to 90 minutes from the current seven hours.

However, analysts have said that a key challenge facing the Government in these projects was coming up with the required funding.

In the MRT's case, it was reported that the Government will create a special-purpose vehicle to raise bonds to finance the project.

Analysts said bonds issued by the Government would be deemed as part of government debt by some rating agencies.

“The more bonds issued by the Government, the higher our debt-to-gross domestic product ratio, which is an indicator used by rating agencies to determine a country's sovereign rating,” a fixed-income analyst said.

On the HSR, analysts said its cost would put a drag on the Government's finances, suggesting instead that enhancing KTM Bhd's existing services and infrastructure might be a better option. - The Star 5 Aug 2011

MRT proposed for Iskandar Malaysia

Wednesday April 13, 2011

The Star

KUALA LUMPUR: A plan to build a 500km mass rapid transit (MRT) system has been proposed to improve the connectivity within Iskandar Malaysia, according to Iskandar Regional Development Authority (IRDA) chief executive Ismail Ibrahim.

“The MRT project will be developed in five or six phases. The first phase is expected to be completed by 2020. The announcement will be made by the Prime Minister if the proposal is accepted,” he said at the Invest Malaysia 2011 yesterday.

He said IRDA planned to build a bus rapid transit (BRT) first and expanded to MRT after that. However, it is still in the planning stage.

“The proposed BRT is about 400km with various phases. The first phase will be about 40km. Connectivity must be established within Iskandar as well as how Iskandar is connected with the outline region, including our neighbour,” he said.

On whether Singapore would extend its MRT to Johor Bahru, Ismail said: “There is actually no discussion with regard to extending the MRT from Singapore to Johor but there has been discussion about wanting to look at connectivity between Johor Baru and Singapore by use of rail, which could be an MRT system. It might so happen to be the same system or it might be a dedicated system.”

IRDA is the regulatory authority mandated to plan, promote and facilitate the development of Iskandar Malaysia into a strong and sustainable metropolis of international standing.

Ismail said Iskandar Malaysia was targeted to attract investments of RM13bil annually into the region, with a target of RM73bil in the next five years following the completion of key infrastructure education and tourism projects by 2012.

He said Iskandar Malaysia had recorded a total investment of RM69.4bil as at December last year and the total had grown to RM73bil as at the first quarter of this year.

“Iskandar Malaysia has moved into Phase 2 of Iskandar Malaysia Compre-hensive Development Plan (2006-2025) with the completion and deliveries of major infrastructure and iconic investment projects, recording RM28bil at end of 2010,” he said.

Meanwhile, Iskandar Investment Bhd chief executive officer Datuk Syed Mohamed Syed Ibrahim said the launch of Iskandar Investment's pioneering catalytic developments beginning 2011 would accelerate the inflow of investment in projects and human capital development into Iskandar Malaysia.

“This will contribute not only to Malaysia's expected growth of 5% to 6% in real gross domestic product in 2011, but also support our nation's aspirations of becoming a high income nation by 2020,” he said in a statement.

MRT to serve 1.2 million people

Friday January 21, 2011

By THEAN LEE CHENG

leecheng@thestar.com.my

PETALING JAYA: The mass rapid transit (MRT) system will serve 1.2 million people with a daily ridership of 442,000, according to a source familiar with the project.

It will have 50% more carrying capacity than the current light rail transit (LRT), which has a capacity of about 30,000 passengers at present per hour per direction, although it is carrying about 35,000 people currently per hour per direction.

The MRT rail car would also be 50% wider with a frequency rate of every two minutes, she said.

Construction work on the MRT, one of Malaysia's largest infrastructure projects to date at a cost of RM36.6bil for civil works alone, without factoring in the cost of trains and land acquisition, is scheduled to begin by July this year on what is currently known as the Sg Buloh-Kajang line.

The source said the Sg Buloh-Kajang line was known as the optimum line because of the masses it would serve along the route.

The route would span Kota Damansara, Bandar Utama, Pusat Bandar Damansara, Kuala Lumpur's Golden Triangle area, Cheras and Kajang. Tenders for the project are expected to begin in April or May. There will be 35 stations, four of them interchanges, on this line.

The source said the sites for the stations were chosen based on several criteria, one of which was ridership.

Although the alignment and siting of the stations were provisional at this point in time, the source said this was based on several criteria.

“It must serve a densely populated area because it is expected to have a 442,000-person ridership,” she said.

“It must also be a commercial area and the station located in an area with dense population,” she added.

The source revealed that “the alignment should also pose minimal negative social and environmental impact on the people in the area.”

“This social environment impact includes noise and vibration, traffic congestion, land acquisition and excavated material management where tunnelling and underground works are needed.

“Other concerns include accident risks, visual impact and water and air pollution,” she added. The alignment and siting of the stations were also based on the need to have an even network coverage, taking into consideration the present LRT, monorail and Komuter rail lines.

The objective, she said, was to have the MRT “converge into the city” and complement the present LRT and monorail lines.

“It must be sustainable, in the event there is a need for expansion.

“Other considerations include connectivity, social impact and constructability,” the source said.

The route is still undergoing preliminary study at present.

It can be adjusted after taking into consideration factors such as the social impact cost, ticket sales and demographics.

12 weeks to conduct RM36bil MRT feasibility study

The Star 9/7/2010

Consultants said to advise Govt on four main aspects including suitability and cost

PETALING JAYA: The feasibility study on the proposed RM36bil mass rapid transit (MRT) system by Gamuda Bhd and MMC Corp Bhd is expected to be presented to the Government in about three months time, said a source familiar with the matter.
It was earlier reported that the Government had appointed two independent consultants – Minconsult Sdn Bhd and Andercon Technologies Ltd – to carry out the study.

The source said the consultants had been given a period of 12 weeks to revert and present their recommendations on the project to the Government. “They are to review and advise the Government on the MRT proposal in relation to its suitability with policy objectives, strategies on public transport, socio-economic benefits as well as its feasibility and cost,” it said.

It is understood that the consultants have been hired by the Finance Ministry in consultation with the recently-formed Land Public Transport Commission or SPAD.
Minconsult was involved in the bridge maintenance and management system study for phase 1 of the Star LRT project. SPAD is supposed to coordinate, integrate and regulate all public transport systems in the country as well as come up with a masterplan.

Previous reports indicated that the MRT project might start as soon as early next year.
To recap, MMC and Gamuda in a joint venture, had submitted a proposal dubbed the Klang Valley integrated transportation system, which was presented to the Economic Council in February. The proposed MRT network consists of two radial lines and a circle line, which has similarities with the train networks in most major cities. It is commonly known as a “wheels and spokes” concept. In total, the MRT network will cover up to 150km of lines, with about a third of them to be built underground.

Although analysts are generally positive about the project, questions remain as to whether the Government can afford such a massive project. It is also left to be seen if the Gamuda-MMC proposed MRT project will be part of SPAD’s public transport masterplan

Minconsult is multi-disciplinary engineering and project management company that offers a wide range of engineering consultancy services in the civil and structural, mechanical, electrical, petrochemical and environmental fields. The company was involved in bridge maintenance and management system study for KTMB Bhd, Phase 1 of Star LRT system (now Ampang Line) and the feasibility study for the proposed Kota Damansara-Central Business District-Cheras LRT line, according to its website.
Andercon is a Canada-based company specialising in installing, configuring, and administering Oracle database infrastructures.