MRT-3 ends 2017 with another system failure

MRT-3. INQUIRER FILE

On the last day of 2017, the Metro Rail Transit (MRT-3) again suffered another glitch, forcing it to unload almost 2,000 passengers taking the southbound route.

The MRT on Sunday morning stopped its operations for about an hour due to signaling problems, according to its advisory.

The signaling system controls the movements of trains through railway signals. It also prevents the collision of train.

At 7:54 a.m, operations resumed after the signaling system was fixed.

In a post on Twitter, the Department of Transportation (DOTr) apologized to the riding public for the inconvenience.

The MRT said 1,959 passengers voluntarily disembarked from the trains and discontinued their journey.

A few minutes after the situation normalized, the MRT issued another advisory explaining that the operations had to be interrupted after the MRT’s local control system EBI Screen encountered a technical problem.

“As per our Control Center, all trains were affected as the exact signaling problem has not been identified yet, but our engineers are already looking into it,” the MRT said in its advisory.

The EBI Screen is a computer-based train regulation system allowing MRT’s Control Center operators to monitor trains and intervene whenever technical problems arise.

“Before the service interruption, the EBI Screen was blinking, indicating a problem in signaling, but cannot fully locate or determine the failure,” the MRT explained.

“Hence, we controlled revenue operations so the Control Center could intervene until the problem is normalized,” it said. /cbb