22
Feature
Rail a singular highlight of
Malaysian construction sector
Text: Michael Hoare
An uncertain future for some of Malaysia’s biggest infrastructure projects has shaken confidence but some nationally significant railway projects are going ahead. On, off, on again; a frantic 12 months in Malaysian politics has been echoing throughout the country’s construction sector. With a change of government last year came a dramatic shift in priorities and a government determined to cut costs on a US$50billion infrastructure programme. Trapped in limbo were a proposed high-speed rail link to Singapore (the Kuala Lumpur-Singapore High-Speed Rail) that was decades in the making and had been costed at US$17 billion, the Chinesefunded US$16-billion 688-km East Coast Rail Link, a US$9.5 billion mass-rapid transit line around Kuala Lumpur called Line 3, and property developments built on a foundation of multi-modal transit interchanges. The decisions have had an effect on the construction sector. In its membership survey for the first quarter of this year, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) says the appetite for new work is limited and workloads have fallen in every market segment. The RICS Malaysia Construction and Infrastructure Survey says financial constraints, light demand, greater competition, the cost of materials, and planning and regulation were constraints on activity that had hurt profit margins. One bright spot is rail projects that are likely to see the biggest increase in workloads over the next year, RICS says. Work is continuing on the Sungai Buloh-SerdangPutrajaya Line (SSP), due for completion in 2022. The change in government saw project’s contractor MMC-Gamuda KVMRT (T) Sdn Bhd forced to renegotiate the contract, slashing costs by more than US$2 billion, bringing the total to US$7.26 billion.
Works on the MRT Sungai-Buloh-Serdang-Putrajaya SSP Line
Now more than 50 percent complete, the 52.2-km line is Malaysia’s biggest infrastructure project. It runs north-south through Kuala Lumpur and its environs in an area known as the Klang Valley. The line includes 11 interchange stations for future and existing projects, among its 33 stops, and caters to the more than 1.7 million people. The project is designed to reduce congestion and take about 160,000 cars off the roads every day, with passengers moved around on the 49 train sets from South Korea’s Hyundai-Rotem. The project is managed by Mass Rapid Transit Corp Sdn Bhd, which said in February that the project was back on track. Among the engineering concerns are 16 underground tunnels that will be excavated by 12 tunnel-boring machines. More than 1,500 users are collaborating on the works’ 45,000 documents by using Bentley OpenRail’s Connected Data Environment in the BIM Level 2 process. The first breakthrough took place earlier this year when TBM S-776VD completed a 1.9-km path at depths of around 40 metres. The MRT is now scaling up the underground works.With traffic jams adding about 158 hours to the average driver's commute per year in Kuala Lumpur, any option to reduce travel time is welcome. When complete, the line will be of immense value to the densely populated region. In more good news for the construction sector, there is the suggestion that more of the mothballed rail projects will come back online.