House transpo panel to work on 1-year roadmap to solve EDSA traffic woes

The House Committee on Transportation is currently conducting a series of consultation with concerned stakeholders in a bid to come up with a solid and viable one-year roadmap to resolve the traffic problem along EDSA.

In a statement on Monday, House transportation panel chair Edgar Mary Sarmiento said he has started informal talks with several government officials and private sector leaders upon the instruction of Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano, as a prelude to a series of hearings focused on solving the EDSA traffic problem.

"Speaker Cayetano wants our traffic problem in EDSA to be solved within one year. EDSA's traffic problem is causing too much economic losses for the government and for our people on a daily basis," Sarmiento said.

"What happened last week, unless otherwise we do something about it, will definitely happen again. We are not only considering the economic losses brought about by the traffic but most importantly the inconvenience it brought to the lives of the riding public," he added.

EDSA saw an unusually heavy traffic for several days last week after the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority strictly imposed the yellow lane policy for public utility buses.

MMDA blamed the heavy traffic on city buses that take over lanes intended only for private vehicles.

Sarmiento said their ultimate goal in the roadmap is to reduce the volume of vehicles along EDSA with the collective effort from the executive, legislative, judiciary and the private sector.

He said there is a need to look at the proposals to consolidate the franchise of all Metro Manila bus companies in order to impose a synchronized dispatch system in EDSA.

Sarmiento pointed out that there are too many bus units plying EDSA. Most of the time, during off peak hours, their load factor was less than 50% making them inefficient when it comes to the use of road space, he said.

"These 3,000 to 4,000 city buses are being operated by 200 different franchises or two dozen or more operators or owners. These buses compete with each other creating chaos. Overtaking, overspeeding, overstaying and all other the road inefficiencies because of this mob rule," according to Sarmiento.

Moreover, the "kanya-kanya" system of city bus operators also prevents the government from creating a centralized and synchronized dispatching system, Sarmiento said.

"There is no centralized dispatching system to make their headway systematic and efficient. With consolidated operations, there will be less traffic on off-peak hours as there will be lesser buses to be dispatched," he said.

"We can even explore setting KPIs (key performance indices) such as - headway should be as short as 30 seconds, reliability of the buses should be 99%, buses should be very clean. We can have a strict monitoring system to ensure bus system is reliable, clean, safe and efficient," he added.

Apart from the proposed consolidation of city bus franchises, Cayetano also asked the House transportation panel to look into the practice of boundary system in bus companies that also contributes to the heavy traffic along EDSA, Sarmiento said.

"The drivers still currently run on boundary basis. If they will be consolidated, we can ensure drivers are salaried, then we can be assured of better service. Puno o hindi, tatakbo. No need to overload buses. No need to overstay in bus stops para punuin ang bus. They lack drivers now because of stiff competition," he said. — RSJ, GMA News