PORT KLANG, Jan 18 — The first of 14 driverless Innovia metro trainsets will commence operations by the middle of this year on the Kelana Jaya LRT Line, Prasarana Malaysia Bhd President and Group Chief Executive Officer Datuk Azmi Abdul Aziz said.
He said the new Bombardier Innovia Metro 300 trainset was expected to increase capacity and improve the quality of public transportation in Kuala Lumpur.
“The new train is expected to provide better frequency and lesser waiting time in stations, thus reducing headway not longer than 2.8 minutes,” he told a press conference after attending the introduction of the new train at Hartasuma Plant near here today.
The latest generation trainset, equipped with 16 closed-circuit televisions, has a ‘Dynamic Route Map’, providing information to passengers on destination directions besides having a “Wheel Lubricating System’ that could reduce the train noise.
Azmi said the new trainset would be able to accommodate an additional 20 passengers per car, from the existing capacity of 200 passengers.
On the remaining 13 new Innovia Metro 300 trainsets, Azmi said the Bombardier-Hartasuma consortium would deliver one train per month to Prasarana until June 2017.
He said all the trains would be shipped from Bombardier’s Kingston plant in Canada, where they were being assembled.
Upon arrival in Malaysia, the trains will be sent to the Hartasuma plant here for interior fit-out and testing before being sent to the LRT Subang Depot for intense testing and certification.
Prasarana awarded the RM577.6 million train contract to the Bombardier-Hartasuma consortium two years ago.
Under the contract, the trains were designed, constructed and tested at the Bombardier’s Centre of Competence for Mass Transit Systems in Kingston, Canada, before being transferred to Hartasuma’s facility for final completion and testing.
The Kelana Jaya LRT Line extension will see another 12 stations being built, stretching from the Kelana Jaya stop up to Putra Heights, Azmi said, adding that the project is on track and is expected to be completed by June 30.
On the proposed recalibration of the 2016 Budget, he said Prasarana would not be affected by the move as the funds for all of its projects were being managed without depending on government allocations. — Bernama
