Strong Republic Transit System

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Strong Republic Transit System is a project of the Office of the President designed to integrate the rail transport infrastructure already present in Metro Manila in the Philippines. It aims to provide a "reliable, seamless and integrated mass transit system that would be at par with international standards" through the unification of already-existing rail infrastructure under one transit system and fare structure.

The Manila Light Rail Transit System (LRT), the Manila Metro Rail Transit System (MRT) and the Philippine National Railways (PNR) Northrail and Southrail lines are covered by the SRTS project.

The project was launched by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo on June 14, 2003.

1 Line names
2 Links
3 Fare integration
4 See also
5 External links

[edit] Line names

Unlike the present-day LRT, MRT and PNR, whose separate systems all have different line names, the SRTS would unify the systems, rename current lines and code them by color for uniformity and ease of recall. The following line names have been adopted:

Current line name	New line name
LRT Line 1 (LRT-1)	Yellow Line
LRT Line 2 (MRT-2)	Purple Line
MRT Line 3 (MRT-3)	Blue Line
PNR Northrail	Green Line
PNR Southrail	Orange Line

Although this line is not yet covered under the SRTS project in its current form, some have suggested that the proposed MRT-4, which would run from Manila to Quezon City, would be renamed the Red Line.

At present, only the LRT and MRT networks have adopted the new color-coding line scheme.

[edit] Links

The SRTS project also provides for seven "links", interchange stations where commuters would be able to seamlessly transfer from one line to the other. The following links have been adopted, with already existing links in italics.

Link	Lines and stations
Pasay Link	Yellow Line	EDSA	Blue Line	Taft Avenue
Cubao Link	Purple Line	Araneta Center-Cubao	Blue Line	Araneta Center-Cubao
Recto Link	Yellow Line	Doroteo Jose	Purple Line	Recto
Santa Mesa Link	Purple Line	V. Mapa	Orange Line	Santa Mesa
Magallanes Link	Blue Line	Magallanes	Orange Line	Magallanes
Blumentritt Link	Yellow Line	Blumentritt	Orange Line	Blumentritt
Caloocan Link	Yellow Line	Monumento	Blue Line	Monumento

[edit] Fare integration

A sample Flash Pass Card

The project also aims to unify fare systems on all networks through the use of contactless smart cards, similar to the Octopus card in Hong Kong and the EZ-Link card in Singapore.

At present, fare unification between the Yellow, Purple and Blue Lines has been achieved through the "Flash Pass", a special ticket consisting of a card and coupon, but fare unification with the PNR has not been achieved as of yet. Contactless smart cards were proposed and were nearly implemented on the Yellow, Purple and Blue Lines, but the French-backed project was eventually dropped.