State infrastructure, transport and digital committee chairman Zairil Khir Johari said the transport ministry’s procurement board would choose the type of LRT system based on passenger projections and the state’s needs.

“When we talk about LRT, many people imagine an LRT like the Kelana Jaya LRT Line, which is a high-capacity service that can accommodate up to 30,000 passengers an hour one way.

“But this is not suitable for Penang,” he said.

“We will not choose a system like that as it’s too high-capacity for Penang.

“We will choose a scalable system where we can start with two-carriage trains.

“When we want to add on in the future (depending on the demand), we can increase it to three or four carriages,” he said when winding up the debate on the motion of thanks to the Penang governor Ahmad Fuzi Abdul Razak’s speech in the state assembly sitting here today.

Commenting further, Zairil said the selection will be decided in line with the projected needs of passengers and cost.

He said the government is considering modular construction to complete the project efficiently.

The 29km LRT project comprises 20 stations, including two interchange stations at Komtar and Penang Sentral. Work is expected to start later this year.

The state assembly sitting continues tomorrow.