The DOST’s people-moving solutions

The light version of the DOST’s Automated Guideway Transit at its test site in UP Diliman

While many people are vigorously objecting to the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority’s plan to expand the car coding scheme, another government agency is quietly preparing to present smart new ways to move people and cargo efficiently in and around the city.

At a dinner with the media recently, Science Secretary Mario Montejo talked about his Advanced Transport Program projects, the prototypes of which are scheduled for completion by the end of the year. This was his positive answer to my question: “Can the DOST help solve the traffic mess in Metro Manila?”

Montejo preceded his talk with a caveat: the Department of Science and Technology is among the government agencies that are allocated the lowest budgets every year compared to the Departments of Education and Defense. In fact, it appears that the DOST is so little known that it is not in the radar of the populace, much less what it is doing to contribute to sustained economic growth. Despite its limited logistics, however, the DOST has initiated proactive solutions to daily problems.

ROBOTIC PROJECT. I first met Montejo in 2010 when I interviewed him and photographed the Robotic Car Park, a local invention that not only occupies minimal land area, but also can be transferred from place to place. The multi-story Robotic Car Park was not a DOST project, but a product of Northwest Steel Technologies, a manufacturing company in Bulacan that Montejo headed for 22 years and divested from when he was appointed science secretary.

Montejo, a mechanical engineer, spearheaded the development of the high-tech Robotic Car Park as a private sector initiative addressing the parking space problem. Now, as DOST head, he has come up with an Advanced Transport Program which offers smart solutions to the disorderly traffic situation that is punishing motorists and commuters alike every day, particularly on Edsa.

ROAD TRAIN. Foremost in the DOST’s Advanced Transport Program is the “Road Train.” a combination of something old and something new. What’s old is that it harnesses and applies to road transport the railway train’s effectiveness in moving people. The Road Train is composed of five interconnected coaches traveling on rubber tires like normal vehicles traversing major thoroughfares like Edsa. What’s new is that the Road Train, unlike a tramway, is powered by a hybrid diesel-electric system, so it does not depend on electricity and will not have a tramway’s suspended cables. Each of the five interconnected coaches will have a wide, air-conditioned interior capable of accommodating 120 passengers, or up to more than 650,000 passenger trips per day of operation if fully implemented.

Full implementation of the Road Train would require a dedicated lane, stations and an adequate number of trains. There’s the snag. Unless the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) and the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) support the Road Train project, it cannot be fully implemented and will remain a prototype project given the DOST’s limited budget. But if the Road Train will replace the “colorum” buses clogging EDSA, it will surely win everyone’s support.

DRIVERLESS AGT. Meanwhile, after two years of research and development collaboration with the University of the Philippines, the DOST has produced a prototype of the Automated Guideway Transit (AGT), the first Filipino-developed driverless elevated, electrically powered train. The AGT is actually the “new train system” that President Benigno Aquino III announced during his 2011 State of the Nation Address. The President himself has witnessed a demonstration run of the AGT at the AGT Test Site in UP Diliman.

The bigger, regular version of the AGT in Bicutan, Taguig, is also expected to be completed by yearend, comparable to the MRT and LRT rail systems. While the AGT prototype in UP is the light version capable of carrying 30 passengers per coach, the regular version in Bicutan can accommodate up to 120 passengers per coach.

RETROFITTING. Also part of the DOST’s Advanced Transport Program is the retrofitting of 40 unused train coaches donated by the Japanese government to the Philippine National Railways (PNR). Last year, the DOST signed an agreement with the PNR to reactivate the idle coaches for operation on PNR tracks by remodeling the bodies and overhauling the power system from electricity-dependent to a diesel-electric hybrid system.

I forgot to ask Montejo whether he has offered the Road Train and AGT projects to the MMDA, DPWH or DOTC. At least, the DOST’s Advanced Transport Program shows that there is one government agency in this administration with better and brighter ideas than prohibiting motorists from using their cars two days a week.