The Metro Rail Transit-3 has served almost two million passengers in the first week of its month-long free ride that started on March 28.
Michael J. Capati, officer-in-charge of the MRT-3 and director for Operations, said the highest ridership it recorded was on April 1 when a total of 309,225 passengers were served.
He said that from March 28 to April 3, the total number of passengers served was 1,934,424.
"We have been anticipating the increase in ridership with the easing of the alert level status in Metro Manila. In fact, we prepared for the scenario by commissioning for the dynamic testing of its Dalian and 4-car CKD trains," said Capati.
The MRT-3 deployed its first ever 4-car CKD train on revenue during the first day of the implementation of the Libnreng Sakay (free ride). It also deployed a Dalian train set, that helped augment the capacity of the rail line, allowing it to serve more passengers.
Each train car of both CKD and Dalian trains can load up to 394 passengers. A CKD or Dalian train set in 3-car configuration can load up to 1,182 passengers, while a CKD and Dalian train set in 4-car configuration can carry up to 1,576 passengers.
The MRT-3's free ride was in celebration of the completion of MRT-3’s massive rehabilitation. It also aims at easing the financial burden of passengers amid rising prices of fuel and goods.
The month-long free ride is between 4:40 a.m. to 10:10 p.m. and will end on April 30.