Halcrow successfully delivered this major new metro line in one of the world’s most densely populated urban areas.
The LRT2 – Purple Line was first proposed to help ease road traffic congestion in the busy east west corridor between Manila City and Pasig. The route encompasses eleven stations; ten elevated and one underground at Katipunan, and a new maintenance and stabling depot. The Metro Manila Light Rail Transit Authority commenced works on the project, however these fell behind schedule. In 1997 Halcrow was appointed to the role of lead technical consultant to recover the programme. Halcrow’s project management and control systems allowed the programme to be recovered and the system to be delivered on time.
Halcrow was lead technical consultant on the project and responsible for detailed design, tender and contact documentation and support, site supervision and commissioning of the system, as well as associated economic assessments and urban planning. Halcrow provided client support and management of safety, auditing and environmental impact, performance objectives and bid documents as well as quality control, quantity measurement, utility relocation coordination and material testing. We were responsible for managing the client’s engineer consultants, managing the contractors and ensuring integration across all interfaces. Halcrow’s project engineering manager was also responsible for managing contract payments, documentation and claims throughout the project. In addition to the diversion of utilities along the line alignment, a number of undocumented utilities were encountered requiring additional management and stakeholder liaison.
To cope with the expected doubling of Manila’s urban population by 2025 the metro is designed for a capacity of 60,000 passengers per hour per direction, with headway of two minutes. The design included all eleven stations and a depot, along with all elevated, at grade and underground tracks. The route is mainly elevated, with the majority of the guideway situated 8m above the ground to avoid a dark tunnel effect, and the sides of the viaduct beans sloped to optimise the light penetration to the street below.
The station designs incorporate concourse areas for retail areas and have full wheelchair and disabled access via lifts and escalators. Stations are air-conditioned and have fully automated ticket vending machines and automatic fare collection systems. These systems are monitored locally and remotely at the central depot office via a fibre optic network, allowing monitoring of system usage. The stations are served by a number of feeder buses which are part of the integrated transport plan.
A dedicated depot serves the line, providing a maintenance shop for preventive and heavy servicing of the fleet, together with storage tracks, a washing facility, spare-parts storage, a maintenance-of-way equipment building and an underfloor wheel lathe. The depot location is in an area prone to flooding, therefore the entire 10 hectare site was raised 2m above ground level to ensure year-round availability. The operations control centre for the line is located on the depot site, with the system-wide telecommunications and signalling systems routed here. The depot features staff accommodation buildings and canteen facilities for up to 150 staff.
Benefits to the client
- recovery of schedule after delays prior to involvement
- construction in densely populated city centre locations
- congested city centre station sites and restricted area for depot compound
- full ventilation and air-conditioning systems throughout all stations for a pleasant passenger experience
- central statistic collation and processing for ticketing and passenger information, allowing remote station operation