Light Rail Manila Corporation (LRMC) announced yesterday that it has commissioned Commsec, Inc. for the P100-million upgrade of the closed-circuit television (CCTV) system across the Light Rail Transit-Line 1 (LRT-1) system. “Commsec will install almost 500 high-resolution surveillance cameras with increased storage capacity to ensure the safety and security of passengers and employees in and around LRT-1’s passenger stations, depot and other facilities,” LRMC President and CEO Juan F. Alfonso disclosed. Alfonso added that train drivers will benefit from a monitor plugged into multiple cameras pointed at each train door to ensure that doors safely close before the train leaves a station. The CCTV system would also feature enhanced software that could count the number of passengers waiting for a train, check the entry of trespassers to unauthorized areas of the system, and help alert LRMC to suspicious objects lying unattended in a station. “With the upgrade, which is estimated to take two years to complete, crowd monitoring will be more effective,” explained Alfonso. “This will also later on feed into an automated system that will inform passengers which stations are heavy, moderate or light, thus helping them plan their trips better.”