GOVPH

Mass Transportation Technology Developed by DOST Inspires Bataan Peninsula State University to offer a Railway Engineering Program

By: Zalda R. Gayahan

The Automated Guideway Transit (AGT), an alternative mass transportation technology designed and developed by the Department of Science – Metals Industry Research and Development Center (DOST-MIRDC), is the most important factor that led to the decision of 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 Center (DOST-PCIEERD), and the BPSU signed a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) for the installation of the AGT at the BPSU on January 27, 2022.  During the MOA signing, DOST-MIRDC expressed its full support to the project.

Specified in the signed MOA is the timeline of the project.  Construction of rail track, electrical room, and coach storage, testing and module development will be completed by December 2022.  The AGT laboratory facility will be launched also in December 2022.  The Railway Engineering program of the BPSU will be offered to students by August 2023. 

DOST-MIRDC Executive Director expressed the Center’s full support to the project. ‘I am proud to say that I am from Balanga.  Balanga is my hometown.  I am really proud that we will have a railway engineering using the AGT,’ Dir. Dizon said. 

He shared with the audience the hope that eventually, we will see the real AGT plying around Balanga.

The AGT as laboratory facility of BPSU’s Railway Engineering (proposed to be implemented as a visual laboratory for engineering programs in January 2023)

(Source: BPSU)