LRT Posts Record High Ridership, Revenue
March 08, 2007
Jinky Jorgio
Tel. Nos. 854-04-52/854-09-84
The said feat, which was achieved on March 2, was last recorded on August 15, 2001, when LRT riders reached 405,715.
?Usually our highest ridership occurs on days falling under special occasions like the Feast Day of the Black Nazarene. But despite the fact that there was no special occasion, our ridership was very high on that day,? Administrator Melquiades Robles said.
Robles attributed the said achievement to the availability of more trains. On the said day, 28 trains, including the 3G trains, or 94 LRVs were fielded during the morning peak, while 26 trains, or 87 LRVs serviced the line during the afternoon peak.
Meanwhile, ridership for the month of February rose to 6% or 9.42 million passengers compared to 8.88 million on the same month last year.
During the said period, the LRTA made available to the public 83 LRVs for the morning peak hours and 86 for the afternoon peak hours compared with the 70 LRVs available and running last year.
?It has always been our firm commitment to make available more trains to the public. That is why we are maintaining the availability of at least 25 trains on peak hours and an average of 22 trains per 17 hours of operation for the Line 1 system and 12 trainsets per 17 hours of operation for the Line 2 system,? Robles explained.
Robles said the LRTA is encouraged by the ridership report even though it is premature to project more record high increases based on their first quarter performance.
?The ridership trend is increasing if we look at our previous 3-years record. On the feast day of the Black Nazarene in January 9 alone we drew around 432, 591 passengers to the Line 1 system, compared to last year?s celebration, which attracted around 428,845 passengers,? Robles noted.
From 2004 to 2005, over-all ridership for the 2 line systems increased by 24.8% and again surged to 8.10% from 2005 to 2006, translating to an average annual growth of 13% for the 3-year period.
n n n