Southeast Asia urban rail transit report – 2025

Phnom Penh studies metro system, Bali metro stalls, Penang starts LRT construction, 3 lines under construction in Manila, Cebu subway, Pattaya monorail plan, HCMC opens first metro line, and 2 other unusual metro plans for Vietnam.

Welcome to the urban rail transit report for Southeast Asia for 2025. This report covers urban rail transit systems that are planned or under construction in Southeast Asia.

🇰🇭 Cambodia

Phnom Penh

A preliminary study for a metro in Phnom Penh was announced in March. The study includes a light rail, automated guide transit, bus rapid transit and tramways.

The study includes connecting the new airport to the city.

The new Phnom Penh Airport (Techo International Airport) opened in September 2025, and despite all of the talk of building an airport rail link while the airport was being built, there is no sign of the rail link.

🇮🇩 Indonesia

Jakarta

North–South Line (Jakarta MRT)

The North-South line of the Jakarta MRT is being extended north to Kota Station (the old city area). The project was 49% complete as of June, and it is expected to be operational by 2029.

The Transportation Ministry also announced a proposal for a southern extension of the north-south line into South Tangerang city in Banten. The extension will connect 12 stations along a 22.6 km elevated track and be completed by 2030.

East-West Line (Jakarta MRT)

Planning for the East-West line is progressing, with funding secured from Japanese lenders. An international tender is expected to be launched in late 2025.

The East-West line will run 24.5 km from Medan Satria in East Jakarta to Tomang in West Jakarta. The route will include 21 stations and interchange with the North–South line at Thamrin Station.

Jakarta LRT

The Jakarta LRT (South Line) is being extended from Velodrome to Manggarai, and it’s expected to be operational by August 2026.

Manggarai Station is being expanded to become the main station for long-distance train services, replacing Gambir Station.

Jakarta LRT is also planned to be extended north to connect Dukuh Atas, Kota Tua & North Jakarta.

LRT Jabodebek

LRT Jabodebek recorded 118,114 users in a single day, setting a new record for the most passengers since the line opened.

The Cibubur Line is planned to be extended from Harjamukti to Bogor.

Commuter Rail

30 trainsets will be procured to ease passenger congestion on the commuter rail system. Meanwhile, three of its iconic Japanese-made commuter trains have been retired after three commuter trainsets imported from China began service.

Jakarta Monorail

The Jakarta Monorail project was abandoned in 2015, and Jakarta is now planning to demolish the pillars that were built for the project. It was reported that the project might be revived, but the pillar removal puts an end to it.

Bandung

Indonesia and France have agreed to jointly develop a light rail transit (LRT) project in Greater Bandung, with construction targeted to begin in 2027.

Surabaya

Surabaya announced that a feasibility study for the Surabaya LRT will be conducted with the UK government.

Semarang

KAI is exploring potential collaborations with Polish companies in the development of electric trams. Semarang was mentioned as being well-suited for such systems.

Bali

After all of the attention the the $20B Bali subway received, the project has stalled over investor concerns and feasibility.

🇲🇾 Malaysia

Kuala Lumpur

Kelana Jaya LRT

RM1 billion will be invested to replace 26 train units used on the Kelana Jaya LRT line.

MRT Circle Line (MRT 3)

The 51.6km MRT3 Circle Line got final approval, and land acquisition is targeted to be completed in 2026.

Shah Alam LRT

The Shah Alam LRT was supposed to open in September, but the opening has been pushed back to the end of the year.

Penang

Mutiara LRT Line

Penang’s long-delayed LRT project finally began construction in 2025. The Mutiara LRT will run north-south from the historic Georgetown area to the airport. The line will then continue to the Silicon Island land reclamation project south of the airport.

The LRT will also have a branch line to connect to Butterworth on the mainland, which will include a new bridge across the Strait of Penang.

Johor

Johor is looking to build a bus-tram network instead of a light rail transit system.

The “bus-tram” is an autonomous rapid transit (ART), which is a bus that looks like a tram. I have not included bus systems in this roundup, even though some lists include ART systems as rail transit. Johor is calling this an elevated autonomous rapid transit (e-ART), as some of the line will be elevated on its own dedicated line. This is still a disappointing choice, because Johor has been talking about being the “Shenzhen of Southeast Asia”, yet they balk at building a useful transit system in an unwalkable city.

RTS Link

The Rapid Transit System (RTS) Link that will connect Johor Bahru to Singapore is advancing, and it is expected to open in early 2027. The first train sets have arrived in JB for testing.

Going back to the LRT/ART problem, the Regent of Johor has raised concerns over traffic congestion in the Bukit Chagar area when the RTS opens. Bukit Chagar is the RTS station for JB, and it is hard to walk to and is surrounded by badly-planned roads. A transit system should have been built in conjunction with the RTS, instead of waiting until it is built.

The previous article also mentions that a decision hasn’t been made over whether it is an ART or LRT, so we wait for a decision.

Melaka

There have been no updates about the privately-proposed 3-line tram system for Melaka. I checked the home page of the proposal, and it has since gone offline, so consider this dead before it began.

Langkawi

Transport Minister Loke is still pouring cold water on the dumb idea of the Langkawi LRT/MRT that was proposed last year.

🇲🇲 Myanmar

Yangon

Yangon Circular Railway

The Yangon Circular Railway has had stations renovated and new trains added to the line.

🇵🇭 Philippines

Manila

Metro Manila Subway (MRT-9)

The under-construction 33 km Metro Manila Subway continues to be delayed by right-of-way acquisition. A third tunnel boring machine was deployed in October.

The most recent estimated completion date is for 2032

LRT-1

The government doubled the funding for the rehabilitation of the Light Rail Transit Line 1, while a part-owner of the operating company is looking to sell due to mounting losses.

LRT-2

Additional P7 billion budget needed for LRT-2 link to Port Area
“Extending the Light Rail Transit Line 2 (LRT-2) to the Port Area would now cost P7 billion more as its construction is behind by more than half a decade, latest estimates from LRT-2 operator Light Rail Transit Authority showed.”

MRT-3

After 10 years in storage, 3 of the train sets from CCRC Dalian Co. were deployed on the system. The trains were delivered in 2014, but they had technical incompatibility issues.

MRT-4

MRT-4 is expected to start construction in 2026. This was meant to break ground in the first quarter of 2025.

MRT-7

The MRT-7 project was 83% complete in June, and it is expected to open for partial operations in the first half of 2027.

Makati Subway

The Makati Subway project was scrapped in May due to the line being in Taguig City instead of Makati City. The two cities had a disputed boundary, and the new boundary puts part of the subway in Taguig City.

Metro Manila is made up of 16 cities and 1 municipality. This a bad system if there is not a unified transport body that decides where future metro lines should run.

Makati are now saying that they have enough funds to build it, so it is not abandoned yet.

North–South Commuter Railway (NSCR)

The North–South Commuter Railway is estimated to be completed by 2027 (a 4-year delay).

Cebu

“The Department of Transportation (DOTr) has committed to construct a 67.5-kilometer subway in Cebu, and will proceed with the development of a demand study to kick off the project.”

Bohol

“With the impending turnover of Bohol-Panglao International Airport to private management, Governor Erico Aristotle Aumentado has reiterated his preference for a monorail system over a Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system to ease transportation woes in the province.”

🇸🇬 Singapore

Cross Island Line (CRL)

Construction begins on 6 Cross Island Line Phase 2 stations; targeted for 2032 completion
“The Cross Island Line will probably be Singapore’s last east-to-west MRT line, Acting Minister for Transport Jeffrey Siow said.”

North East MRT Line (NEL)

Punggol Coast MRT station opened on December 10 2024.

Thomson-East Coast Line (TEL)

Tanah Merah, Expo, and Changi Airport MRT stations will be converted from East-West (EWL) to TEL stations. These stations are currently on the airport spur line, so the change will join the future Thomson-East Coast Line that will serve Changi Airport Terminal 5 (under construction).

Here is a map of the line modification.

Jurong Region Line (JRL)

The under-construction Jurong Region Line will be extended southwards to join the Circle Line. An operator for the line has been selected, and the line is expected to begin partial operations in 2027.

Circle Line (CCL)

The Circle Line is set to become a true circle line when Keppel, Cantonment and Prince Edward Road stations are completed in 2026.

Downtown Line (DTL)

Hume station opened on February 28 to an enthusiastic crowd.

A Downtown Line extension will link Bukit Panjang to the North-South Line by 2035.

Sengkang-Punggol LRT Line

New two-car trains begin service on Sengkang-Punggol LRT Line.

Seletar Line (proposed)

The Land Transport Authority (LTA) is conducting feasibility studies for the proposed Seletar Line, though no timeline has been set.

🇹🇭 Thailand

Bangkok

A recurring news theme in Bangkok’s urban rail transit system has been the 20 baht fare cap. The offer (for Thai citizens) included the Green, Gold, Yellow, Pink, Blue, Purple, Red Lines, and Airport Rail Link (ARL).

This was a good workaround for what was becoming an expensive system for the average Thai commuter. As the network is operated by three different companies with separate payment systems, there was no way to implement a daily cap on fares. I have written about this previously here: The ticketing mess of Bangkok’s rail transit.

The 20 baht cap is ending at the end of November, so other discounts are being considered, such as the B40 daily flat fare for Red and Purple lines.

It bothers me that the Bangkok rail transit system is so fragmented. The different operators are not compelled by law to work with each other, so they build stations without interchanges to nearby stations of other railway companies. I also covered this in my article about the station transfer mess of Bangkok’s rail transit.

This ticketing and station mess is why I was excited to read that the government might buy back the concessions of all electric train lines in an effort to make public transport more affordable. In other words, nationalisation.

BTS Green Line

The main news of the BTS Skytrain (comprising the Sukhumvit and Silom lines) has been regarding the debt owed by the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) to the BTS operator (Bangkok Mass Transit System PCL) for outstanding operations and maintenance fees. The BMA was ordered to settle the 32-billion-baht debt to the BTS.

Orange Line

Work on the Orange Line is progressing, and the Eastern Section is expected to open in late 2027. After legal wrangles, the Western Section is under construction and it is expected to be completed by November 2028. Tangible evidence of this construction was the closure of the Ratchathewi flyover to build Ratchathewi Station.

Pink Line

Despite the number of lines under construction, the 3-kilometre, two-station extension of the Pink Line represents the only new line added to the network map over the last year.

Purple Line

The southern extension of the Purple Line is now 65% complete.

Unfortunately, the Purple Line construction was marred by the sinkhole at Vajira Hospital, which was caused by soil entering the tunnel. The nearby police station also had to be demolished, and the hole has been filled with sand and rock as a temporary measure.

Before the sinkhole incident, there was a video doing the rounds of mud oozing out of the ground in Thonburi, where tunnelling was taking place.

Red Lines

The SRT Dark Red Line is planned to be extended north to Thammasat University.

The planned SRT Light Red Line extension to Nakhon Pathom is on hold.

Pattaya

Pattaya has been planning for years to build a 4-line monorail system, and the Green Line is the first under consideration. The plan is to connect the beach area to the future high-speed railway that will connect Pattaya to Bangkok. The high-speed project is also long delayed, so don’t expect this to happen anytime soon.

Nakhon Ratchasima

Another long-delayed project is the Korat mass transit project. At the start of the year, it was announced that design work on the 11.2-kilometre rail route would start this year.

Chiang Mai

There haven’t been any updates about the Chiang Mai metro system, but while I was there, I walked the route of the proposed first line. Here is my review of the Chiang Mai Metro routes.

Phuket

The proposed Phuket light rail or monorail is still being talked about, but no meaningful progress has been made. There was an announcement of nine major infrastructure projects worth more than B130 billion for the island. This package includes the light rail to connect the airport.

🇻🇳 Vietnam

Hanoi

Hanoi has two operating metro lines (Line 2A and Line 3), and work is continuing on the underground section of Line 3.

The Nam Thang Long – Tran Hung Dao section of Line 2 broke ground on the 9th of October, 2025. This line will eventually connect the airport to the old city area.

Construction of Line 5 is expected to break ground on 19 December, so there should be two lines under construction by the end of the year.

Hanoi announced that it will spend more than 55 billion USD to develop 15 urban railway lines, so getting two lines under construction in one year is a good start.

Ho Chi Minh City

Line 1

After many years of delay, Line 1 of the HCMC Metro opened on 22 December 2024. I was there on the opening day, and here is my report of the day.

Me on the HCMC Metro opening day

The line has exceeded passenger targets, and they have the quality problem of not enough parking.

Line 2

Line 2 is another delayed line of the HCMC Metro. I have been keeping track of the construction news, and this line should have been finished by now if it had kept its original schedule. Instead, it hasn’t even started construction. The latest update says that Line 2 will break ground on January 15, 2026.

Ben Thanh – Can Gio Line

In January 2025, Vingroup proposed a metro from downtown Ho Chi Minh City to the undeveloped coastal district of Can Gio. This was a new proposal that has never been part of the official masterplan.

Vingroup are building a new urban area on reclaimed land on the Can Gio coast, and they want a metro line to connect it to the city centre.

The metro line that has been proposed is a 52.9 km rail line from Ben Thanh to Can Gio in Ho Chi Minh City. They are proposing that is will be a high-speed metro with a speed of 350 km/h. They are also saying that the line will break ground on the 19th of December, this year!

None of this makes sense. There is no such thing as a high-speed metro, and it is remarkable that is has gone from being proposed in January to starting construction in December. Line 2 was meant to start construction 10 years ago and it still hasn’t started. I will be posting more about this line.

Thu Thiem – Long Thanh Line (airport rail link)

The Thu Thiem – Long Thanh Line will connect Ho Chi Minh City to Long Thanh International Airport in neighbouring Dong Nai province. The government has changed the classification of this line from national railway to urban railway, so it is now planned as part of the HCMC Metro system.

This line has been in the planning stage for years, yet it is still not clear when it will start construction. This is a problem for the new airport, because it is 40 km from the centre of HCMC. Long Thanh is being built to be a major air hub of Southeast Asia that will eventually handle 100 million passengers per year, but it’s going to be a pain to get to. The airport is expected to open in December (though more likely in 2026), but there is a reluctance to move flights there when it is going to be difficult to get to.

It seems odd that the Can Gio Line can be decided upon within a year, while the airport line is taking over 10 years to decide on.

Da Nang

Da Nang has been talking about building a metro system for several years, including a line from Da Nang to Hoi An. In July this year, there was a merger of provinces, and Quang Nam province (where Hoi An is) was merged into Da Nang city. With this new super city that includes Da Nang and Hoi An, the city is moving ahead with an ambitious metro system of 16 urban railway lines spanning over 200 kilometres.

The planned urban rail system in Danang city, central Vietnam.

Phu Quoc

Joining the Can Gio metro as an unusual proposal, the island of Phu Quoc has proposed building an urban railway from the airport to the convention centre that will host APEC 2027. The Phu Quoc metro line will be 17.7 kilometres with 6 stations.

This first showed up in the news in June, and now it is apparently already under construction. Unlike other projects that get delayed, this is being built to serve APEC, so it needs to be finished in 2 years. Considering that every metro project in Vietnam has been delayed by years, this is an ambitious undertaking.

The line is being built by Sun Group, which is a major domestic conglomerate that has interests in real estate (like Vingroup).

If they can build a metro line in two years, then maybe they should build more metro lines in the country.