To unclog Edsa, install a modified BRT system

The horrific traffic nightmare that is Edsa is caused by too many cars and buses. If we can ease the traffic by initially cutting down the number of buses, allowing only the newer and air-conditioned ones, and letting bus operators ply their route without traffic, many motorists might be persuaded to leave their cars at home.

It has been established that there are too many half-empty buses on Edsa, and this can only mean: fierce competition for passengers; buses waiting for passengers, making every street corner a virtual terminal; and buses wriggling in and out of their designated lanes to chase after passengers, thus occupying two or three lanes instead of one.

The solution will sound simple to many: Remove competition for passengers, cut down the number of buses by half, and reserve one lane exclusively for them.

All these can probably be done by installing a modified BRT (Bus Rapid Transit) system using the present participants, their buses and their employees. As soon as the Department of Science and Technology’s road trains become available, maybe in one or two years, several of these can be added for an Edsa-only route.

But before we even try to lay out the suggested solution, some caveats:

• For quick implementation, we must get the cooperation of the present operators/franchise holders.

• We should use the present buses as much as possible, or at least the newer half of them.

• It should involve as many of the present bus drivers and conductors as possible in order to ensure their continuing employment.

• The location and design of the bus stops should make it difficult for bus drivers and passengers to load/unload just anywhere.

The suggested solution, which we may call “Solution 8+1,” is to follow the proposal of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (Jica) some 18 years ago to consolidate all the known 30-35 routes into just eight major routes. (It was learned that only half of the 3,500-5,000 buses are needed to handle the passenger traffic on Edsa.) Then, add some of DOST’s road trains as soon as they become available commercially (this is the “+1”). The four- or five-coach road trains will ply only Edsa from the Mall of Asia Rotunda to the Monumento Rotunda.

Due to the age of the Jica study, the eight routes and number of buses proposed may have to be tweaked. The older buses (perhaps those with lower capacity) not used on Edsa can be used as feeders at the end of the routes to complete the trips of our commuters with maximum convenience. The important thing is to get this modified BRT system going as soon as practicable.

The Department of Transportation and Communications, Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board, and Metro Manila Development Authority can bid out the ownership of each route as a monopoly. To make it bankable, the franchise will have to be a minimum of 10 years or so. The chosen operator will have exclusive right to the route, end to end—that is, no other bus company can ply the route. Monopoly should mean no competition for passengers. At last, we may see passengers waiting for the bus, rather than the other way around!

The monopoly holder should be deputized to ensure that no other public utility vehicle can ply the route particularly outside of Edsa. It will be a self-policing arrangement. (This is important because if others are allowed, it will again be a competition for passengers; the buses will again load and unload just anywhere. The monopoly holder will not be able to compete because other PUVs will then be able to load/unload anywhere.)

Initially, these bidding parameters, among others, are suggested: The fare must be equal, no higher than the current and future MRT3 fares, the winner shall be the highest bidder for each route, and no one operator or consortium of operators can win more than two routes.

The amount paid by the winning bidders will be used to partially cover the cost of additional pedestrian overpasses—at least 15 to 20 more—on Edsa.

Our hapless commuters are spending a considerable portion of their daily income on bus fares. Lower bus fares should help them save their money for other purposes.

Lower fares are achievable because of the efficiency that can be achieved in organizing these nine routes into a monopoly: Tighter controls can mean higher load factors to approach full capacity on the average; operating with only half the number of the buses will mean half the operating cost and half the maintenance costs; more turnaround (up to double the current turnaround) means double the revenue. It is not impossible to wish for quadruple the revenue for the remaining buses.

With no traffic (or at least much less traffic), at MRT3 fares, plus more bus stops and mostly one ride from point to point, all these measures should considerably cut down the debilitating queues at MRT stations.

One possible glitch in this proposal (perhaps some more are still unknown) is that the nine routes will converge on the stretch from Guadalupe to East Avenue (called the Super Edsa Corridor), which can mean competition for short-trip passengers. Chaotic competition will probably not happen because all the vehicles will run on an exclusive lane next to the middle lane (at least while they are on Edsa). Passengers will not be able to board the vehicles unless in the station. They cannot go down from the vehicle anywhere as they have to cross the street using the passenger overpass.

It looks to me a win-win-win solution: to the commuting public because of less traffic and savings in fares; to the operators for better profitability and to their employees for a reward of better pay; and to the government, in terms of not only partial savings from the congestion cost of P2.4 billion a day (as reckoned by Jica) but also the macroeconomic effect of putting more savings in the pockets of commuters.

Glicerio V. Sicat, a DOST consultant for advanced transport systems, was an investment/development banker, part-time professor at the Ateneo MBA Program, and transportation undersecretary for rail and aviation in 2010-2011. He holds a bachelor’s degree in engineering from the University of the Philippines Diliman and a master’s degree in business management from Ateneo de Manila.