Philippines: That has been announced by Senator Raffy Tulfo after his personal inspection of the depot of the Manila Metro line MRT-3.
The senator argues that the country’s administration in power at the time was aware that the new vehicles would be incompatible with the local standards. Nevertheless the contract was not terminated.
48 three-car 8MLB tram-trains were delivered by CRRC to Manila between 2015 and 2017. According to the senator, roughly PHP 2 bln ($34 mln) per year is needed for the maintenance of the fleet if the trains are put in operation. Tulfo believes that the Department of Transportation (DOTr) should return the trains to CRRC, and the purchase price worth $65 mln should be refunded.
Some of the tram-trains were brought into service in May 2016, subsequently decommissioned and put in operation again for several times. Currently, there is not any running vehicle. The reported reasons are both technical (incompatibility of signalling, increased axle load, and others) and legal (controversies between DOTr and the MRT-3 owner).