The ASIAN Railway Magazine, June 2019 – “Platform Intrusion Emergency Stop”(PIES®) Is A Life Saver on MALAYSIAN LRT Line

Nothing proves a technology to be effective more than a real life situation and for the Platform Intrusion Emergency Stop (PIES®) system, that moment came in April 2018, when a pregnant woman fainted and fell onto the track at Damai LRT Station on the Kelana Jaya Light Rail Transit (LRT) line in Kuala Lumpur.

Thanks to state-of-the-to art innovative safety system that had been installed on the line, an approaching train was immediately stopped from entering that station, avoiding further injury to the lady on the track. The rescue team from the Fire and Rescue Department and medics reached the location soon after the incident and took about seven minutes to rescue the victim. The Kelana Jaya LRT line was cleared to resume operations in less than half on hour.

AZTI® Technology Sdn Bhd is the technology owner for the PIES® system that ‘saved the day’. Putting people’s safety as the highest priority, the Platform Intrusion Emergency Stop (PIES®) system has proven that it is a cost effective platform intrusion safety solutions at minimal capital outlay and lowest operating expenses for the rail industry.

PIES® is the most reliable system with the longest operating track record worldwide since 1985. The Company’s long list of prestigious projects and clienteles include the Sky-train in Vancouver, Canada for 20 stations. Since then, the system has been installed in various projects globally such as Sydney Monorail (Australia), Los Angeles Metro Green Line (USA) and Kelana Jaya LRT, Kelana Jaya Extension Line, Ampang LRT and Ampang Extension Line (Malaysia).

The recent Kelana Jaya LRT incident was a good case study. The PIES® system has proven its capabilities in ensuring platform safety. This state-of-art innovative PIES® system utilizes a series of flexible mounted sensor panels located between running rail in front of platforms and attached a proprietary strain sensitive cable BLUCOR® to these sensor panels and developed electronic circuitry to eliminate environmental effects while still detecting human intrusion. The motion sensitive cable generates electronic signals in direct response to any motion applied to the sensor panels and sends it to the local control panel. The signal will be filtered and monitored for any changes to trigger a notification signal to the affected Platform Control Panel, Train Signaling and SCADA systems. The intrusion signal of PIES® will notify Signaling to close the station track from trains entering. It meets all safety requirements for adverting any tragic accidents such as passengers falling onto the tracks.