MANILA, Philippines — Light Rail Manila Corp. (LRMC), the private operator and maintenance provider of LRT-1, plans to deploy new technologies at the rail system to further intensify safety and health measures.
LRMC president and CEO Juan Alfonso said the company is on continuous lookout for new technologies to ensure that the LRT-1 is safe for passengers and its employees.
“Definitely the pandemic has highlighted a lot of safety concerns. Our biggest challenge right now is how do we address the public perception that public transportation is not safe,” he said.
On top of existing technologies already being utilized. He said LRMC intends to pilot in LRT-1 the use of high efficiency particulate air filters, which are the standard in the aircraft industry.
“We’re always looking at new technologies to really fence and make sure that the people coming into the system don’t have fevers, and also if we can use technology with air conditioning and making the air cleaner, we will in the future,” the LRMC head said.
Alfonso said LRMC has so far benchmarked its practices using international standards, which include the use of face masks, more frequent disinfection and use cashless or automatic payment systems.
“The public transport operators around the world are also using a lot of technology in order to make public transportation safer and this includes the use of ultraviolet disinfection. In LRMC we do this every 30 minutes,” he said.
Aside from disinfection measures using ultraviolet technology, LRMC has also deployed thermal cameras for entry screening and developed a contact tracing app feature.
“Public transportation is safe, especially in the train system. The train system is very organized. There is only one way in and one way out. And everybody goes through that screening process,” he said.
LRMC appeals to the government to allow the rail transit system to operate at a 50 percent load factor from the current 10 to 12 percent.
“We are challenged right now by the load restrictions. And I think we’ve appealed to government to look at a more holistic approach so that the total journey time of the passenger is taken into effect, from queuing to getting into his destination,” Alfonso said.
LRMC, a consortium of Metro Pacific Light Rail Corp., AC Infrastructure Holdings Corp., and Macquarie Infrastructure Holdings (Philippines) PTE Ltd., was awarded the public-private partnership project to operate, maintain and extend the LRT-1 in 2014.