The Department of Science and Technology (DOST) officially launched Friday, Oct. 1, its “redesigned and improved” Safe, Swift and Smart Travel Management System or S-PaSS, as well as its S-PaSS mobile app to provide better user experience to travelers and local government unit (LGU) users.
As of Sept. 1, the DOST has logged 3.3 million S-PaSS users.
Developed by DOST Regional Office VI, S-PaSS serves as a one-stop online communication and coordination platform for travelers and LGUs. The system seeks to help the LGUs in managing the travelers coming from other parts of the country whether they are returning Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs), local travelers, and tourists among others.
"We are happy that there are a lot of LGUs and now there are more than three million S-PaSS users. We look forward to our partnerships with other agencies particularly the DILG (Department of Interior and Local Government). We have high hopes in transferring the technology later in response to the clamor of many stakeholders from the different LGUs to harmonize S-PASS and the different contact tracing apps,” DOST Secretary Fortunato “Boy” T. de la Peña said in his message during the S-PaSS project milestones report for 2021.
Since the official launch of S-PASS in March 2021, 79 percent or 95 or out of 121 LGUs nationwide have actively used S-PaSS in their respective localities.
More than 2.3 million Travel Pass-Through Permits (TPPs) have been generated and around 1.6 Million Travel Coordination Permits (TCPs) have been approved using the system.
DOST VI Regional Director and S-PaSS project leader Engr. Rowen R. Gelonga said six regions have fully used S-PaSS. These include Ilocos, Cagayan Valley, Calabarzon (Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal, Quezon), Western Visayas, Central Visayas, and Northern Mindanao.
He said among the challenges they encountered in implementing S-PaSS are the following:
-processing time of TCPs by LGUs;
-gaps in the nationwide checking of S-PaSS travel documents in ports of entry and exit;
-21 percent of targeted LGUs still needs to use S-PaSS;
-use of fake S-PaSS travel; documents; and
-interoperability and/or harmonisation of contract tracing, travel management and vaccine certificates applications.
Gelonga said the new S-PaSS portal and mobile app were launched to provide better user experience to travelers and LGU users such as providing a more intuitive graphical user interface, use of visually-appealing graphics and color scheme, streamlining of navigation menu, and development of a more mobile-responsive layout.
Through the redesigned and improved website, travelers can easily navigate through different S-PASS features. They can check for travel policies and travel requirements of destination LGUs, register for a personal S-PASS account, apply for a travel permit and look for LGU contact information.
S-PASS app may be downloaded for free on Google Playstore.
The DOST encouraged the public to try the new S-PaSS at s-pass.ph and download the S-PaSS app.