The government’s road-transport policies remain antipoor and even antibusiness, owing to the bias in favor of private cars over public transport, and the restrictions on the flow goods of business through the truck bans.
‘Emperor’s new clothes?’ In fact, it is these decades-old transport-policy biases that is causing the traffic that no one seems to notice, just like the classic “Emperor’s New Clothes” story, whereby everyone was made to believe the emperor was wearing the best clothes crafted by the best tailors, but it had to take an innocent boy to puncture the veneer of truth over the zarzuela of pretensions when he shouted the emperor was not wearing any clothes.
Our emperor’s tailors here are our experts who ill-advise our leaders, including Transportation Secretary Arthur P. Tugade, into implementing policies that may appear sound from their perspective, but do not augur well for public transport and the riding public.
Recently, the utility vehicles (UV) Express vans and FX were banned from Edsa for allegedly contributing to traffic and that many are illegal colorums. This is grossly unfair when Uber and Grab taxis, containing fewer passengers, mostly one or two, are allowed on Edsa, while the UV Express carrying 10 to 18 passengers are banned.
Uber and Grab may provide a market niche, but this lopsided policy is antipoor. Only for fairness, why not ban Uber and Grab, as well, from Edsa and let them take the side streets as their passengers are willing to pay premium rates anyway.
Even experts can’t see problem? Even economists from the Philippine Institute of Development Studies can’t seem to see the problem when they declared in their February 2, 2015, Business World article that “there are too many buses [12,595 buses] operating within Metro Manila run by 1,122 operators, a total contrast to only four bus consortiums plus the Metro Manila Transit Corp. in the 1970s.
They recommend that “the first necessary step is to limit the number of buses in franchised routes,” implicitly noting the proliferation of colorums in excess of passenger riding capacity. It is ironic that the same brand of economists recommended three decades back the liberalization of public transport that led to the proliferation of buses.
Their arguments are flawed on two counts. For one, they cannot be fixated on a static number of buses, as commuter demand is dynamic and relative. In fact, if motorists suddenly leave their cars and take the bus to help ease traffic, you will need more buses.
More important, what escapes their attention, which is causing the traffic, is the dominance of private cars, which only carry an average of 1.2 passengers per car, says a Department of Transportation and Communications study. In contrast, buses carry as many as 60 seated passengers and maybe an additional 20 standing. This means one bus is equivalent to at least 50 to 60 cars of road space.
Again, Tugade was ill-advised in requiring “speed limiters” alone, when advanced technology now is the “Mobile Communication Control System, which not only records speed, but captures moving locations, and costs only P500 per unit compared to speed limiter of P6,000 to P7,000, says my friend Dave Garcia.
Sense of the common. Why many “experts” do not often get it is because they see things from the comforts of their cars, and would, thus, tend to blame others than themselves for the traffic.
In contrast, commuters and public-transport leaders may not be articulate, but they see reality on the ground and have more common sense. Ronald Baraoidan, chairman of the National Jeepney Federation for Environmental Sustainable Transport, for instance, argues “why is there a moratorium on public transport, but none on cars.”
This means it is the cars, not the buses or the UV Express vehicles and vans, that is causing mainly the daily “Gordian-knot” of a traffic and P2.4 billion a day in increasing costs and opportunity losses, says a Japan International Cooperation Agency study. Sales of four-wheeled vehicles, mostly cars, hit 330,000 units in 2015 alone, with 60 percent likely registered in the National Capital Region , Central Luzon and Calabarzon.
So why penalize buses and the “FX-AUV” Express vehicles, which cater not to private individuals, but to the public. Perhaps, Tugade must not rely totally on his “ivory tower” experts, who are devoid of reality, but learn “common sense” directly from the people as Duterte does.
When government cracked down on colorums, it caused many commuters stranded. Why not limit the number of cars and legalize all colorums to absorb the spillover effect.
Truck ban offers no real solution. As to truck bans, which penalize business as these constrict the volume flow of goods and services, thus affecting prices and supply availability, this should be overhauled. Getting rid of trucks during rush hours may help reduce traffic, but do not really solve traffic as they tend to buildup massively, and start rushing in mass once the bans are lifted. Imagine, there are over 400,000 registered trucks nationwide, a bulk of which pass through Metro Manila. How other countries solve this problem is to program trucking 24 hours of the day to spread out the volume. Time slots may be drawn for fairness.
A pricing mechanism can also be adopted, whereby fat incentives be granted to deliveries at night and extremely exorbitant fees for daytime deliveries. This same congestion- pricing system can also be adopted for private cars.
Congestion pricing on cars. A similar congestion-pricing scheme can be adopted for cars, which can be captured through higher parking fees, the proceeds of which can be used for bigger mass-transit infrastructure, like Francis Yuseco’s Intel-track system. And because public roads were built by public funds from people’s money, priority must be given to public transport, not cars. The idea to sell cars only to those who have garages is also wrong as anyone has the right to own property. They may own cars, but have to park them in parking buildings that can emerge as
new businesses.
Another temporary but innovative instant solution to the traffic monster is to require buses to remove their seats, except for a few for the elderly and disabled, so as to allow 50 percent to 80 percent more passenger volume, faster loading and unloading in the absence of narrow aisles, and faster turnovers. Also encourage massive private shuttle services by companies, cooperatives, homeowners’ associations, which their car-owning members can patronize together by leaving their cars behind.
All the above measures can solve traffic immediately, while reversing the perception policies are antipoor and antibusiness.
E-mail: mikealunan@yahoo.com
3 comments
Good article…..people who have a conscience act on it.
What about the buses and jeepneys which clog the roads waiting and dropping passengers? These instances are rampant in the country and needs to be addressed as well. Also, cars go from point A to point B without stopping, if we can make a system which is able to determine where cars will be going and arrange the traffic lights in such a way that it will be a go all the way then traffic will be lessened.
Instead of banning vehicles, I would suggest that the government perform a study of the traffic situation of Metro Manila and gather all types of data. Like at 8 AM, this part of EDSA will clog up due to the stoplight waiting 100 seconds to turn green. Let data scientists perform the study and implement a smart solution. Let’s utilize big data and make our system better.
Mr. Michael Makabenta, have you notice how a proposed Royal Maharlikan Federation would really work in today’s Philippine context? This country needs a non-political Maharlikan royal head of state under a Maharlikan constitutional monarchy, a combination of ancient Filipino traditional system and a British-style constitutional monarchy, with a strong federal parliament, an arsenal of anti-corruption measures, and an assortment of public disciplinary principles based on good, tried-and-tested traditional values and customs for the general public to really understand and follow on an all-you-need-to-know and grassroots basis. It is really important for the general public to follow and do like the Japanese children and adults do.
Anyway, any kind of smart solution would have worked very well as long as it is well-suited to the Southeast Asian context on various streets and highways.
Any more proof that such systems will handle so much data applied on any location in case of traffic? Please let me know now and more coming, Mr. Makabenta. Thank you very much.