By Jedd Ugay, Monica Lavares, Jerik Cruz and Marjorie Muyrong
Most Filipinos in the labor force are commuters. In the “old normal,” we have been travelling via buses, jeepneys, tricycles, pedicabs and UV express vehicles. Based on Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) reports, around 70 percent of 11.5 million to 12 million people
hitting the roads each day in Metro Manila are regular public transport users.
Yet today, as the Philippines transitions into the “new normal” of the coronavirus pandemic, the government has drastically curtailed supply of public transport services. This has been in spite of warnings of a looming “transport crisis” that may soon become “catastrophic” at a critical period for the Philippine economy.
Our Covid-19 context makes an overhaul of the Philippine transport system necessary—not only due to longstanding market and government failures that have besieged Filipinos with “commutes from hell,” but also due to the fallout caused by anti-pandemic measures for the transport sector. Based on our recent ADMUEcon-ACERD working paper, we outline a number of critical strategies needed to promote truly inclusive, efficient, and Covid-resilient transport services in the country.
Route rationalization
Even with transport sector representatives warning of an impending collapse given Covid-19 restrictions, our present conjuncture presents a “golden opportunity” for rationalizing redundancy-prone transport routes plied by PUV operators—a major source of traffic congestion in the country’s metro areas.
Last May 23, for instance, the LTFRB had unveiled its Rationalized Bus Transit Maps in Metro Manila as part of its Route Rationalization Program. According to LTFRB, the rationalized routes will significantly reduce Metro Manila’s bus routes from 96 to 31. While this would also mean limiting franchises to operators who have financial capacity to meet health standards, it can also lead to the promotion of economies of scale that can benefit commuters with lower fares, and afford transport providers better access to financing. For this, rationalization should not focus on reducing public transport, but on providing optimal supply to meet demand.
Nonetheless, an efficient Metro Manila bus system would be only one, though an especially critical, component of the public transport system. For streamlining other transport modes, both in Metro Manila and elsewhere, our policymakers would do well to adopt the following strategies:
- Identify spatial mismatches between places of residence and work in order to identify demand for public transport;
- Harness studies on optimal routes (e.g. ideal travel time, number of stops) across urban and peri-urban areas;
- Prioritize movement of PUVs over private cars to maximize efficiency and capacity; and
- Account for the implementation of social distancing measures in transport design, including through cashless fare collection systems and Covid-19-compliant PUV stops and terminals.
Service contracting agreements
Before the Covid-19 pandemic, PUV drivers earned their daily incomes as the total of passenger fare collected minus their gasoline and maintenance costs and the daily rental fee of vehicles. Unfortunately, earning incomes from these schemes are dependent on the number of available passengers and the number of completed trips. The system has hence encouraged dangerous on-the-road competition among drivers as well as hazardous commutes for the general public.
In order to provide sufficient public transport services while complying with health and safety guidelines, the “new normal” calls for a shift to service contract agreements between transport operators and the Department of Transportation. In this new arrangement, transport operators will be contracted to deliver services on a “fee per day” or “fee per kilometer” basis with government, while drivers will be employed under a fixed daily wage by operators.
Beyond these, contracts with operators can also include obligations (e.g. observing prescribed schedules, reducing emissions, utilizing cashless fare collection systems, adopting social distancing protocols) and incorporate incentives/penalties to enhance standards and curb on-the-road competition.
Build better BIYAHEnihan
Rationalizing road transport also requires infrastructure investment for more efficient and inclusive commuting systems. As part of its post-pandemic response, the Duterte administration should refocus its infrastructure program on providing cost-effective Covid-resilient infrastructure, such as protected bike lanes, improved and widened sidewalks, bus/PUV priority lanes, and Covid-compliant stops/depots/terminals. These could be in lieu of multibillion big-ticket projects such as mega-rail, mega-expressway, mega-airport, and mega-bridge BBB projects whose viability after
Covid-19 is now in question.
Even in the context of the pandemic, these Covid-resilient investments are attainable. Estimates by the MoveAsOne Coalition indicate that developing 1,600 kilometers of sidewalk improvements and bike lanes, 100 km of bus/PUV priority lanes, 20 bus/PUV depots, 16 intermodal terminals, and 1,600 bus stops would cost P78-billion. This initial amount can be readily covered by either re-designating several BBB projects for Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) development or temporarily suspending viability-constrained mega-projects and reallocating their budgets to more urgent cost-effective infrastructure.
The Philippine road transport sector has been in chaos for years, and Covid-19 has thrown it into a crisis of unparalleled proportions. With our “commutes from hell” poised to worsen further, building a more rational, humane, and inclusive public transport system should be among our foremost priorities as we move toward economic recovery and the new normal.
The authors are students, graduates, or faculty of the ADMU Department of Economics and are advocates of sensible and humane transport policies.