The Automated Guideway Transit (AGT), an alternative mass transportation technology designed and developed by the Department of Science and Technology – Metals Industry Research and Development Center (DOST-MIRDC), served as an inspiration for the Bataan Peninsula State University (BPSU) to offer Railway Engineering as an additional program under its College of Engineering and Architecture.
The DOST, DOST-Philippine Council for Industry, Energy, and Emerging Technology Research and Development (DOST-PCIEERD), and the BPSU signed a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) last January 27 for the installation of the AGT at the BPSU.
Specified in signed MOA is the timeline of the project. The construction of rail track, electrical room, and coach storage, testing and module development will be completed by December 2022.
With this, the AGT laboratory facility will be launched also in December 2022. Incidentally, the Railway Engineering program of the BPSU will be offered to students by August 2023.
DOST-MIRDC executive director Robert Dizon expressed the center’s full support to the project. “I am proud to say that I am from Balanga, which is my hometown. I am really proud that we will have here railway engineering using the AGT as the model,” he said.
Noting the pioneering history on Balanga in the field of technology, Dizon said he is looking forward to the day when a real AGT would eventually be established in the city to ferry passengers. — Zalda R. Gayahan, DOST-MIRDC
