DOST awards AGT test track to Miescor

Thursday 21st of June 2012

QUEZON CITY, June 21 (PIA) -- The Department of Science and Technology (DOST) has awarded the P22 million contract to Miescor Builders Inc. to construct 465-meter test tack of the first all-Filipino mass transport—the automated Guideway Transit System—in the University of the Philippines Diliman (UP) campus in Quezon City.

In a press release sent to PIA-NCR, the DOST said the ceremonial awarding was done during the Metals Industry Research and Development Center (DOST-MIRDC) Metals and Engineering (M&E) Week Conference at the Traders Hotel in Manila on June 19, 2012.

Miescor Builders Inc., is a leading construction and engineering company wholly owned by the Meralco Industrial Engineering Services Corp.

The AGTS in UP-Diliman will run on a track that curves from the C.P. Garcia Avenue near the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) building to the area of the UP-Diliman College of Arts building.

“This will be the future of mass transport systems made by Filipinos,” DOST Secretary Mario Montejo said.

The AGTS is one of DOST’s high-impact technology solutions and is the first among DOST’s several proposed public transportation systems for Metro Manila, Montejo added.

The project team is made up of engineers from DOST-MIRDC, UP Diliman, and the Project Management Engineering and Design Service Office. The team aims to create a fully automated, driverless electric transportation that travels on an elevated guideway.

The guideway will stand at an elevation of 6.1 meters supported by high-quality concrete material, while the train body will be composed of two adjoining coaches, each having 30-people capacity.

Also, the coaches will roll on rubber tires instead of metal wheels to minimize track noise, and will have bogies to ensure comfort and stability.

According to Engineer Jonathan Q. Puerto, Officer-in-Charge of the office of the Deputy Executive Director of DOST-MIRDC, the test track in UP Diliman will help MIRDC to fine-tune the technology’s mechanisms and operation, which include speed, stability, brake distance, and power, among others.

“If all goes as planned in the construction of the guideway, we will be able to initiate the testing in October,” said Puerto.

Aside from being locally developed, the DOST’s AGTS is environmentally sound as it is non-polluting. It is also reliable because it is fully automated, and safe because the elevated guideway will not get derailed or cause road accidents. The AGT also helps reduce traffic congestion and its economic costs.

Some countries that are reaping benefits from the AGTS technology at present include the United States, Japan, Singapore, and Canada.
“If these countries can do it, so can the Philippines,” Montejo said.

The AGTS project is monitored by the DOST’s Philippine Council for Industry, Energy and Emerging Technology Research and Development. (DOST/RJB/JRCA/PIA-NCR)