Ref.: Mariecar Jara-Puyod
Tel. No.: +63 (2) 647-3452
September 8, 2003
Lights went out at 8:45 a.m. With a blink of an eye, licensed engineers, experts in their respective fields of specialization, detected the power failure was concentrated only at the depot.
No cause for extreme unease. The problem was due to an outside factor, not by any malfunction, serious or otherwise, in the entire structure of the mass rail transit system itself.
Service to commuters went uninterrupted for the past two-and-a half hours.
Likened to a sci-fi photoplay, the scene was from the Operations Control Center (OCC) of the Light Rail Transit Authority in Santolan, Pasig City.
The men, surprisingly acclimatized to the very cold environment, were giving directions to and receiving information from their colleagues on the ground, via state-of-the-art TV monitors, as well as other audio-visual communications apparatus.
“Day in, day out, it is these men who are on top of the situation with regards the operations of LRT 2,” LRTA administrator Teddy Cruz, Jr. volunteers.
“This is so because the OCC is the nerve center of the Purple Line,” the lawyer hastily adds, as he himself takes a seat at the center of the centermost operator console among four operator consoles.
The operator consoles, three of which are spread out in the approximately 300 sq. m. room -- excluding a visitors viewing room and a simulator room -- and the centermost operator console -- are the direct linkages to all the “internal and external essentials” needed in running the mass rail, Cruz says.
These are where the TV monitors; the novel and first in the country Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA), responsible for the remote control management of the power supply to the depot and the entire Purple Line; the highly sensitive Building Management System for the Katipunan underground terminal; and the centralized Public Information System, are installed.
While there are separate operator consoles for the direct networking to the train operations (Fleet Section), SCADA or power supply (Systems Section), and station operations (Stations Section), the centermost operator console raised on a platform, “sees through everything and is handled by the duty manager,” LRT 2 traffic control division manager Nestor B. Flores explains.
These four are interconnected to the neonized “schematic” or “mimic diagram” of the entire 13.8 km Santolan-Recto route mounted on the middle wall.
The graphic representation of the route aids the OCC engineers in determining the location of and problem track areas to the trains which are also equipped with their respective blackboxes similar to the airline carriers, Flores adds.
Through the Fleet Section, the arrival and departure time of the driverless South Korean and Japan- manufactured trains which can run up to 80 kph, when dispatched, are programmed.
“The headway (gap or interval between trains) is determined by the Fleet Section engineers. This is altered when there are obstructions on the track circuit as detected by a specialized device or some monitored and confirmed unusual occurrences in a particular station,” LRT 2 operations and maintenance manager Engr. Ed San Juan says.
For instance, if the public security and safety are at stake, as determined by the Stations System, it is the Fleet Section people who can program the train to skip the affected station and proceed to the next safe terminal, while schemes to address the problem are already operational.
According to San Juan: “The Station Section serves as the eyes of the OCC in all the stations. The system has been designed in such a way that all daily activities from Santolan to Cubao and next year to Recto can be monitored and recorded, including telephone and radio conversations between OCC personnel and our men in the field or whoever they come in contact with.”
Most of the ultra-modern technology and systems of LRT 2’s OCC are imported from Dimetronics of Spain, STE and Meidensha of Singapore, Whipp & Bourne of Germany, Toshiba of Japan, Rotem of South Korea, and Geismar of France.
IN COMMAND. Light Rail Transit Authority Administrator Teddy Cruz, Jr. (seated) checks on all the systems of the Purple Line. Photo by Gerry Pilapil, LRTA
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