MTR majority-owned subsidiary awarded new 7-year franchise to operate and maintain Melbourne train system

MTR Corporation welcomes the announcement today (12 September 2017) by the Victorian State Government in Australia to award a new seven-year franchise to Metro Trains Melbourne (MTM) to operate and maintain the Melbourne train system.

MTM is a 60%-owned subsidiary of MTR Corporation and has been successfully operating the 390-km Melbourne metropolitan train service since 2009. Over the past eight years, extensive service improvements have been made on the system which provides an average of 840,000 passenger journeys on weekdays, including for punctuality and reliability, safety, asset management and customer satisfaction. 

The new franchise will start from 30 November 2017 and includes up to a three-year extension option. Under the new operations and maintenance agreement, MTM is committed to delivering further enhancements to railway operations, asset maintenance and customer service in Melbourne, including by:

• Adding more peak services. Over the seven years, an extra 335 peak services will be added per week as well as 1,758 inter-peak and weekend services;
• Higher reliability and punctuality performance through increased maintenance to improve infrastructure and rolling stock reliability;
• Upgrading 500 CCTV cameras;
• Improving the passenger experience with more information and cleaner trains and stations; and
• Creating more than 600 new jobs across the franchise including 128 in the first year.

“We are very pleased that a new franchise has been awarded to MTM. This is a fitting recognition of the determined efforts and achievements by all colleagues and shareholders of MTM to uplift service performance over the past eight years. MTR, our partners, John Holland Group and UGL Rail, and the whole team at MTM look forward to continuing to work in close collaboration with the Victorian Government over the next seven years to meet Melbourne’s growing demand for high quality railway transport,” said Mr Lincoln Leong, Chief Executive Officer of MTR Corporation.

MTR Corporation

MTR Corporation is regarded as one of the world’s leading railway operators for safety, reliability, customer service and cost efficiency. In its home base of Hong Kong, the Corporation operates nine commuter railway lines, a Light Rail network and a high-speed Airport Express link on which more than 5.5 million passenger trips are made on a normal week day. Another 4.9 million passenger trips are made on the rail services it operates outside Hong Kong in the Mainland of China, the United Kingdom, Sweden and Australia. In addition, the Corporation is involved in a range of railway construction projects as well as railway consultancy and contracting services around the world. Leveraging on its railway expertise, the Corporation is involved in the development of transit-related residential and commercial property projects, property management, shopping malls leasing and management, advertising media and telecommunication services.