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Category Archives: Behavior
On safe school zones
We’ve been working for safer roads since I started practicing as a transportation engineer/planner. Most recently, we were working on a program supported by UNICEF on Child Road Traffic Injury Prevention (CRTIP). The work towards safer roads especially for those who are most vulnerable is always challenging but it is something that is definitely worthwhile. As we approach May, which is Road Safety Month in the Philippines, I will try to write more about road safety.
Here is an infographic shared by the Road Safety Research Laboratory of the National Center for Transportation Studies of the University of the Philippines:
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Shared article on shared mobility
Here’s is a nice short read on a Sunday about shared mobility. The article is of particular interest to me because it tackles the needs of persons with disabilities, senior citizens and those in low income households.
Seruga, K. (April 14, 2025) “Shared mobility: Making travel easier for all,” Knowable Magazine, https://knowablemagazine.org/content/article/society/2025/increasing-access-to-shared-transportation [Last accessed: 27/04/2025]
“But if you’re disabled or elderly, living in a low-income area or — imagine! — without a smartphone or credit card, using these shared mobility services becomes a lot more difficult. They tend to cluster in more affluent urban areas, and are often inaccessible to people with reduced mobility or those traveling with young children needing child seats. In part because of these factors, users are disproportionately younger, wealthier, able-bodied, white and male.
Shared mobility could be a key part of a more sustainable transportation system. But to be most effective, it needs to include everyone. For-profit shared mobility providers have largely failed to deliver on this, but various initiatives and projects are finding creative solutions to reach underserved communities.
The potential benefits are large. On-demand shared mobility that feeds into well-developed public transportation systems could reduce the number of vehicles in some cities by 90 percent and cut transportation emissions by 50 percent — but only if it largely replaces private car use. “The car has to be a guest, not the main actor,” says Luis Martinez, lead modeler at the International Transport Forum, who coauthored a paper on shared mobility and sustainability in the 2024 Annual Review of Environment and Resources.”
There is a cautionary tale on ‘for-profit’ shared mobility here but a major difference in countries like the Philippines from those in western countries is the presence motorcycle taxis and the surge in the ownership of electric three-wheelers. These have changed the way people travel though their impacts are only now being assessed.
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On reckless driving and riding, road rage, and kamotes
A story went viral a couple of weeks ago about a motorcycle rider getting shot by a driver. Many discussions and videos have been shared with some sympathetic to the driver and others to the riders. One thing is definite from the videos shared when you filter the commentaries and biased opinions – both the driver and the riders are guilty of reckless driving or riding. With all due respect to the root crop often invoked and associated with these kinds of motorists, kamotes as they are called seem to have increased no thanks to many of these learning to operate motor vehicles without being properly trained, oriented, evaluated and tested if they deserve having licenses. The increase and documentation of incidents of road rage should be taken very seriously by the LTO and serve as reference for improving the licensing system.
Here’s an informative material on reckless driving from the National Center for Transportation Studies’ Road Safety Research Laboratory:
This Holy Week, there are many who are using the roads whether for long distance travel (e.g., spending the holidays in their hometowns away from the metro) or for the typical religious trips (e.g., pilgrimages, Visita Iglesia, etc.). Motorists should exercise caution as they drive or ride. We should be more mindful of the impacts of our behavior to other travelers whom we share the roads with.
Safe travels to all!
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On step counts towards health and wellness
I’m sharing here an article about step counts. I guess the jury is still out there so to speak when it comes to the number of steps per day. The key is really to be active rather than just sit or lie down for most of the day. And there are many ways to be active and be able to measure it so you can monitor your movement.
Loudin, A. (February 28, 2025) “Why step count remains the most impactful fitness stat,” WebMD, https://www.webmd.com/fitness-exercise/news/20250228/why-step-count-remains-most-impactful-fitness-stat [Last accessed: 4/14/2025]
To quote from the article:
“For decades, the goal was 10,000 steps a day — but further research has shown that step counts as low as 2,500 still deliver long-term health benefits that increase as your step count rises — even past 10,000. The bottom line, however, is that more movement is better for you and serves as the best measurement of longevity.”
You can walk to start your day. You can walk in the middle of the day (say lunch time). And you can walk after dinner. And that’s just walking. Of course, you prefer to jog, run or bike, even swim, then that should do it for you in terms of being active. Walking though is really for most people who are physically able. And you can do it outdoors or indoors (yes, even in a building). So that’s where you should start in terms being more active towards health and welnness.
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On a different kind of transport – electric suitcases
Here’s an interesting article for Sunday. I guess you’ve probably seen these at airports and even malls?
Unseen Japan (February 3, 2025) “Japan Warns Against Use of Electric Suitcases ,” Medium.com, https://unseenjapan.medium.com/japan-warns-chinese-travelers-against-use-of-electric-suitcases-d3eb946f2980 [Last accessed: 2/23/2025]
To quote from the article:
“Electric suitcases act as miniature people-movers, preventing people from having to walk from point A to point B in sprawling locations like airports. With a speed of 10 to 13kph, they’ve proven especially popular among tourists from China.
They’re also somewhat dangerous. On top of the danger of running into other passengers, people can lose their balance and take nasty spills.
The devices have proven a nuisance outside of airports, too. Last year, police in Osaka charged a woman for riding an electric suitcase on a sidewalk. Riding the device violates Japan’s motor vehicle laws, as it’s not legally classified as an e-scooter. It also violates the law around motorized vehicles on the sidewalk, which are only allowed for certain devices that restrict their top speed to 6kph.”
While these “act as people-movers”, I don’t think these could be regarded as transport under the category of micromobilities. If these are allowed to proliferate, then these will create new problems and come into conflict with active transport. What do you think?
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On unwanted traffic
I just want to end this first month of 2025 with a commentary on unwanted or undesirable traffic. Last year, one of our neighbors leased their property to a trucking company. This was without information to the homeowners’ association and certainly without the knowledge or notice to neighbors, particularly those near their property and along the routes the trucks use. The result was unwanted truck traffic along roads that we usually used for our daily walks. Truck drivers’s usually drove the vehicles as if they were not in a residential area. That is, they were usually fast and belching smoke. Add to this the drivers hanging around and even loitering around the village. Many neighbors complained about this but the resident did not respond favorably or in a neighborly manner. And so each one of us had to confront the drivers ourselves and reminded them to drive carefully and slowly as they were in a residential subdivision. The village security was also told about them and the roving guards also reminded the drivers about safe driving.
And so I was pleasantly surprised when during my first walk of the year, I found that there were no more trucks along the road and parked in their property. I thought this was a nice New Year’s gift and ended what is generally regarded as an external cost to society.
The now clear street in our neighborhood used to be lined with trucks. This street was quite busy, noisy and smelled of emissions from idling trucks. It’s good to recover the road space for walking again. Do you have something similar happen in your neighborhood?
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On the fatal Katipunan road crash
The vehicles involved in a recent road crash that killed at least 4 people are still there and parked under the Aurora Flyover. A truck apparently lost its brakes and control and the driver ended up plowing into other motor vehicles, likely trying to gain some control in order to stop the truck. It was reported in news articles that there were 4 immediate fatalities and many suffered serious injuries. We probably won’t know the final fatality count unless someone reports on those hospitalized for injuries.
The crash highlighted again the need for vehicles, especially trucks, to be roadworthy. This time of year, most of these trucks run busy schedules with the logistics requirements. But maintenance is just one part of the problem here as the truck was reported to be speeding. So driver behavior is also a factor and apparently there was no monitoring (having those CCTVs don’t count if they are only used in a passive manner such as for evidence after a road crash had already occurred) or enforcement versus speeding for these large vehicles. Also, was the truck overloaded? This practice may also lead to the deterioration of the truck’s brakes and the vehicle’s mass contributes to the severity of the crash including the damage to other vehicles. The MMDA and LGUs have their work cut out for them to address these road safety concerns.
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Campaign garbage
Politicians have used various media to further their personal interests and aspirations. Foremost perhaps of these interests and aspirations is getting elected. More effort it seems goes to promoting themselves however they can. While its months away from the campaign period, there are already a lot of campaigning going on with what I perceive as hard sells already having a head start when they shouldn’t be doing so at this time. You see the likes of Abalos, Marcoleta and Lee whose faces are scattered among buses, bills, billboards and tarps. And then there are the familiar names including re-electionists and relatives of incumbent or outgoing officials also ‘reminding’ people of their candidacies as if we owe them our votes.
Here is the case of this former mayor of Metro Manila City who is also a former cabinet secretary who is aspiring to become a senator. His campaign materials are on buses, billboards and posters around the country. Samahan daw nation sa Senado. Why? If he’s already doing something blatantly anomalous at this stage, I would not expect anything except more anomalies from him.
It is very frustrating that the Comelec is not doing anything vs. these premature campaigning, even stating that these are not illegal. Well, these definitely cost a lot of money. And how do you think these politicians will recover their ‘investments’?
I will post about these garbage in future posts. I just need to compile more examples to share here.
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On bike lanes contributing to safer roads
Do bike lanes make roads safer? There are obviously mixed reaction to this question especially if you look as social media. If we are level headed about this topic and look at the evidence out there, the answer is yes. But there can be caveats as we try to contextualize in the local setting. The formal studies so far are in countries where the drivers arguably more disciplined than ours here in the Philippines. Driver behavior, after all, is a major factor for road traffic safety. Here is a good article for reference in the discussions and arguments for bike lanes:
Tu, Maylin (November 5, 2024) “How Bike Lanes Slow Drivers and Save Lives,” Next City, https://nextcity.org/urbanist-news/how-bike-lanes-slow-drivers-and-save-lives [Last accessed: 11/10/2024]
To quote from the article:
“Bike lanes with physical delineators (cones or bollards) were more effective than paint-only lanes at calming traffic, echoing a popular mantra for bike activists: “Paint is not protection.” (The lanes were not protected, however, because drivers could drive over the delineators.) For vehicles turning right, top speeds were reduced by 28% and average speeds by 21%. Paint-only bike lanes slowed driver speeds by up to 14% and drivers going straight slowed down by up to 8%…
The study adds that pop-up bike lanes are a cost-effective solution for studying the effects of more permanent solutions — after all, you could just borrow the traffic cones. A city could quickly implement pop-up or temporary infrastructure. Then, armed with data and community feedback, they could invest in making the changes permanent.”
The article also points to a technical paper or scientific article on the traffic calming effect of bike lanes. Here is the link to the article published in the Journal of Urban Mobility: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.urbmob.2024.100071
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On whether bike lanes cause more traffic congestion
I previously share articles on whether bike lanes cause more traffic. This question has been asked so often as we have returned to the “old normal” levels of traffic and bike lanes that were put up during the pandemic have been neglected or removed in favor of motor vehicle traffic. The perception for those in-charge of traffic and transportation in local government units is that the space occupied by bike lanes take up the space demanded by motor vehicle use. Thus, the view that bike lanes cause congestion. Here is another article share in support of bike lanes:
Mortillaro, N. (October, 2024) “Do bike lanes really cause more traffic congestion? Here’s what the research says,” cbc.ca, https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/bike-lanes-impacts-1.7358319 [Last accessed: 01/11/2024]
To quote from the article:
“One would think that building more roads with more lanes for cars would reduce congestion, but research shows that’s not the case, thanks to something called induced demand. The more traffic lanes that are put in, the more it appeals to people who may not otherwise have chosen to drive, thereby putting more cars on the roads and increasing congestion.
“So for a short period of time, there might be a slightly improved [reduction], but within a year or two, or perhaps three, traffic is as bad or worse than it was before the lanes were added in the first place,” said David Beitel, data services lead at Eco-Counter, a Montreal company that collects and analyzes pedestrian and bicycle traffic data.
Conversely, if you put in more dedicated bike lanes, people tend to feel safer and demand for use increases, said Shoshanna Saxe, an associate professor at the University of Toronto’s department of civil and mineral engineering and Canada Research Chair in sustainable infrastructure.
“As soon as you build a bike lane, within a year, two years, the latent demand shows up,” she said.
Bike Share Toronto statistics show that ridership on its network of shared bikes has increased dramatically since 2015, when 665,000 bike trips were made annually. In 2023, that shot up to 5.7 million trips.”
I think many people here are already aware of the concept of induced demand. However, this is usually shrugged aside as realities in their situations (e.g., commuting options, locations of residences and workplaces, etc.) lead them to choosing private vehicles (i.e., cars and motorcycles) over public or active transport. The last paragraph there is significant though as there never was and so far a decent estimate of bike trips in any city in the Philippines. Granted that there are attempts to measure bike trips but the volumes published so far are not as reliable as we want them to be in order to be convincing decision-makers to put up more bike lanes. Of course, the convincing part is always challenging if decision-makers have already made up their minds in favor of the car.
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Caught (up) in traffic 