KUCHING, May 22: The progress of Phase 1 of the Kuching Urban Transport System (KUTS) is at 8.25 per cent as of the first quarter of 2023.
Minister of Transport Sarawak Dato Sri Lee Kim Shin said Phase 1 of the KUTS Project involves three Autonomous Rapid Transit (ART) lines, namely Blue Line from Rembus to Hikmah Exchange (27.6 kilometres), Red Line from Kuching Sentral to Pending (12.3 kilometres), and Green Line from Pending to Damai Central (30 kilometres), with a total length of 69.9 kilometres.
“The Blue, Red and Green lines are expected to be completed in Q4 of 2025, Q4 of 2026, and Q4 of 2027, respectively.
“I am glad to inform that the ART project is progressing according to our plan, with transparency and good governance practices,” said Lee in his winding-up speech at Sarawak Legislative Assembly (DUN) sitting today.
Lee also informed the August House that the Prototype ART Hydrogen vehicle had completed Stage 1 of the Proof of Concept (POC) exercise at the CRRC Zhuzhou Institute Company Limited facility in China in March this year.
He said the Prototype ART Hydrogen vehicle is tentatively scheduled to arrive by the end of July this year, where an engineering run will be conducted at the Isthmus area from September to October 2023.
He also said it would be followed by testing of the prototype vehicle along the 3-kilometre ART lane of the Kuching–Samarahan Expressway tentatively in November 2023. The construction of the ART lane is still ongoing.
“The engineering run and POC exercise are very important for us to assess the vehicle’s performance which is crucial to facilitate the development of the systems.
“Besides the technical testing purposes, we believe that the POC exercise will provide an opportunity for the public to see the ART system in action,” he said. — DayakDaily
