The next time you walk through Jurong East MRT station, you might be walking past an “electronic guardian” that looks pretty much like a futuristic scanner straight out of a Star Trek episode.
These scanners called Human Security Radars were revealed by the Land Transport Authority (LTA) on Friday in a post on their Facebook page and were installed at Jurong East MRT Station.
They were deployed during an emergency preparedness exercise called Exercise Station Guard to check if security measures at public transport places are working as intended.
According to LTA, the radar is a fully-automatic walk-through system that can screen up to 10,000 people per hour, which helps to screen more commuters in real-time without disrupting the flow of commuters.
The radar can detect explosive devices and firearms hidden under clothes and in backpacks and can detect multiple targets at once, according to weapons detection company Max C Meister.
Transport minister Khaw Boon Wan said on his Facebook page that such technology could help secure MRT stations which can be vulnerable to terrorist attacks.
“Question is how to secure them, without causing too much hassle to commuters, especially during peak hours… technology has to provide the solutions,” said Minister Khaw.
If you have a titanium plate in your left shoulder much like the minister himself who suffered a fall and had to be hospitalized, Minister Khaw wants to assure you that it is safe to walk through the radar.
“With a titanium plate in my left shoulder (following a nasty fall which fractured my left humerus), I walked past the Human Security Radar with ease. It is safe. No beep,” he said.
Right on.
