By Robertzon Ramirez (The Philippine Star) | Updated June 19, 2015 – 12:00am
MANILA, Philippines – Trains of the Metro Rail Transit (MRT) are “five times more deadly” than those in other countries, an advocate said yesterday.
A total of 3.48 injuries were recorded for every 100 million passenger-miles of the MRT in 2013, which is 2.78 higher than the 0.7 injuries in US trains, according to Archie Orillosa of Advocates of Science and Technology for the People (AGHAM).
“Management failure caused all these breakdowns and glitches,” he said.
Compared were the 2003 to 2008 US FTA data and the 2013 to June 2015 data of AGHAM’s tally from the news and on the MRT’s official website, Orillosa said.
“This was made to compare the same age of the US trains and the MRT,” he said.
During the 2003 to 2008 period, US trains were 15 to 16 years old, the same age of the MRT during 2013 to June 2015, Orillosa said.
Lack of proper maintenance “for the past two years” caused the MRT to be unstable, he added.
Since 2013 the frequency of glitches has been increasing, Orillosa said.
APT Global spokesman Bing Zaide said maintenance is not the problem of the MRT as the trains should be rehabilitated.
“There is already a need to rehabilitate the system,” Zaide insisted.
AGHAM’s comparison of some cities and their metro systems showed that the Philippines has the least number of railways compared to six other countries.
Metro Manila has only three line systems compared to Tokyo Metro with nine lines; London Underground with 15 lines; Berlin’s U-Bahn has 10 lines; Berlin’s S-Bahn with nine lines; Seoul Metropolitan Subway with 18 lines; Beijing Subway with 18 lines; and New York Subway with 10 lines, AGHAM said.
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