Ukas to award MMC Corp-led consortium JB ART project — sources

KUALA LUMPUR (May 5): The long-awaited contract for the development of a rapid transit system in Johor Bahru will be awarded to the MMC Corp Bhd-DOM Industries Sdn Bhd consortium, say sources privy to the bidding.

According to them, the Public Private Partnership Unit (Ukas) of the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) will be awarding the consortium with a letter of intent (LOI) on Tuesday.

The Edge reached out to an officer at Ukas for comments but did not receive any response.

The JB rapid transit project — believed to be an elevated autonomous rapid transit (eART) system — has been in contention for at least a year, between the MMC-DOM consortium, WCT Holdings Bhd (KL:WCT)-Lion Pacific Sdn Bhd and YTL Corp Bhd (KL:YTL)-SIPP Rail Sdn Bhd.

Nylex Malaysia Bhd and BTS Group Holdings PCL, the developer and operator of the Bangkok mass transit system, are also part of the MMC-DOM consortium, with Nylex playing the role of the promoter of the project, while BTS will provide technical inputs.

The request for proposal (RFP) for the project was issued by Ukas on March 12 last year.

Since it is a public-private partnership (PPP) project, the cost of the project will be borne by both the government and the winning bidder. It is estimated to cost nearly RM7 billion.

The JB rapid transit project is a crucial infrastructure to alleviate traffic congestion in the city, especially with the JB-Singapore Rapid Transit System (RTS) set to be operational by early next year.

It is crucial for JB to have an efficient public transport system to disperse the thousands of passengers that are expected to use the JB-Singapore RTS at Bukit Chagar station once it is operational.

The JB-Singapore RTS has the capacity to handle 10,000 passengers per hour per direction.

It is believed that the MMC-DOM consortium's proposal is for an automated people mover (APM) system to be used, similar to the ones used at Singapore's Sengkang and Punggol Light Rail Transit lines.

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