Goal is to increase yearly number of users by 40 percent, among others

Metro de Valparaiso (Merval) has announced its plans to turn the metro in Valparaiso into a transportation hub of the entireRegion V. The company will be investing close to US$10 million in the next three years in an effort to increase users from 14 million to 20 million The plan includes building several new stations, enabling an optical fiber system along both the train stations and the trains, developing a more sophisticated energy system to power the trains.

 

This plan comes after the metro successfully doubled its number of monthly users between 2006 and October 2009 by creating the Bus+Metro service in 2008, after deciding not to integrate with the TransValparaiso transportation system in 2006.

“We started experimenting with ways to attract passengers from Calera, Quillota and Limache,” said Merval president Juan Enrique Coeymans of the Bus+Metro system.

The metro currently runs between the port of Valparaiso and Limache, cruising along downtown Vina del Mar, Quilpue and Villa Alemana. With this new investment, the trains’ route would be enlarged further north to reach Quillota and La Calera.

Some people are even urging extending the metro to Los Andes.

SOURCE: EL MERCURIO
By Sebastian Leon ( This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it )