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Updates and resolution on the common railway station in North-EDSA
The big news today is the agreement among the government and the big corporations involved in the issue of the common station at North Avenue-EDSA where three rail transit lines (Line 1, Line 3 and the future Line 7) will be converging. The key features of the agreement are reproduced here:
“KEY FEATURES OF AGREEMENT
- The Common Station has three components: (a) Area A, where the platform and concourse for LRT-1 and MRT-3 are located; (b) Area B, which consists of two Common Concourses connecting Area A and Area C; and (c) Area C, where the platform and concourse for MRT-7 is located.
- Area A will be financed and built by DOTr. Area B will be financed and built by Ayala and its partners (NTDCC) (this is Ayala’s contribution to the Common Station project). And Area C will be financed and built by San Miguel.
- The portion of Area A for LRT-1 will be operated, maintained, and developed by LRMC. The portion of Area A for MRT-3 will be operated, maintained, and developed by DOTr. Area B will be operated, maintained, and developed by Ayala. And Area C will be operated, maintained, and developed by San Miguel.
- The MOU contains the design parameters for the Common Station, which will be the basis of the Detailed Engineering Designs to be developed after signing of the MOU. The Detailed Engineering Designs will be completed within 240 calendar days from signing date.
- The designs shall ensure that a defined level of service is maintained at all times by all components of the Common Station.
- The designs shall ensure that all components of the Common Station are interconnected, and that SM City North EDSA and Trinoma are interconnected to the Common Station.
- The Common Station is targeted to be completed by 2 April 2019, subject to extension as may be justified under the MRT-7 Agreement with respect to Area C.
- SM’s TRO will be lifted soon after the Detailed Engineering Designs are completed.
- DPWH will build an underpass along EDSA at the area where the Common Station will be constructed. This will be financed and built by DPWH.”
That was a direct copy and paste from the DOTr’s Facebook page.
There is another piece of information that’s gained a popular following and that is the design for the common station that was shared to the public:
Proposed design of the common station
I think the design is basically okay in terms of location. The layout would need to be refined in order to address concerns pertaining to optimum and efficient transfer of passengers between lines. I assume from the drawings that all three lines will be at the same level but with a plaza separating Lines 1 &3 from Line 7. There are also issues pertaining to proposed road grade separation in the area but that seems to have been addressed already by item #9 in the preceding list. We can only hope that the current government and private sector partnership can expedite this project.
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Commuting and stress
Here is another quick post but on a topic that’s related to health and therefore is something that I think many should be interested in and perhaps take important note of.
Commuting: “The Stress that Doesn’t Pay”
There are many links to various medical articles within the article. At the last part, there is also a list of references that the reader may want to look at. I’m also posting this for future reference. This would contribute to the formulation of topics for research especially the inter-disciplinary or collaborative kind.
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City coding anyone?
Last December 8, it was a holiday at Taguig City as they celebrated their foundation day. Not surprisingly, many major roads including C-5, Ortigas Avenue and EDSA were relieved of congestion and I was among those who benefited from this as we breezed through Ortigas to get to the hospital for our daughter’s regular check-up. I also saw many posts on Facebook in agreement with this observation as they too had shorter travel times particularly between Quezon City and Taguig.
I jokingly proposed on my social media account that perhaps, instead of tinkering with the number coding scheme, we should have something like coding for cities. I recall recommending something like making a holiday for one major traffic generating city for each of the five working week days. It’s like making Mondays off for Makati City, Tuesdays off for Pasig, Wednesdays for Makati, Thursdays for Taguig, and Fridays for Manila. I got some supportive comments including one that made very good sense about commuters losing the equivalent of a day anyway because of traffic congestion. The 4-day work week is not at all unusual or new since this has been practiced in many offices including government offices. In certain cases, there are offices that allows you to work from home once a week so you only need to be physically in the office for 4 days. It would be nice for an analysis for this proposal be made and supported perhaps by some modelling so we can have metrics for the potential benefits to all of such 4-day work weeks.
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Mobilizing sustainable transport for development
The United Nations (UN) has recently published a new report on “Mobilizing sustainable transport for development” authored by a High Level Advisory Group on Sustainable Transport formed by the UN. The report and other resources may be found at the following website:
Secretary General’s High Level Advisory Group on Sustainable Transport
This is under the UN’s Sustainable Development Knowledge Platform. You can check out the other materials at the website. The UN has many initiatives on sustainable transport and has been very active in promoting or advocating for sustainable transport for a long time now. It is through the UN Centre for Regional Development (UNCRD), for example, that the Philippines and other ASEAN countries were able to formulate their national EST strategies. The new report continues on the UN’s commitment to promote sustainable transport to improve people’s lives around the world.
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Oversupply of vehicles for ridesharing/carsharing – Part 2
This is a follow-up on the recent post on ridesharing/car sharing where I talked about my observation that there seems to be an oversupply of vehicles being used for what is claimed as ride-sharing or car-sharing. In that post, I mentioned an observation by me and my colleagues that popular ride-sharing/car-sharing companies like Uber and Grab have led to more vehicles on the roads. I add to that the findings of our students that:
- Those shifting to Grab and Uber are mostly those already using taxis (regular users) and those using UV Express, which is a higher capacity vehicle using either vans or AUVs (average passenger capacities between 10 and 18 passengers).
- GrabCar and Uber function more as premium taxis rather than ride-share or car-share modes.
A friend who’s among the first Uber drivers in the country (He was already an Uber driver before the explosion in the service’s popularity.) shared that Uber earlier had been a real car-share/ride-share. My friend’s full time job was as a musician and he thought of becoming an Uber driver only to have some additional income for when he wasn’t busy with his work or didn’t have gigs. He was not roving around Metro Manila to get fares much like what is now being done by many Uber and GrabCar units.
Later, when Uber and Grab began more aggressive marketing; promoting their services as potentially generating much more income than conventional taxis and perhaps even a person’s full-time job, people started purchasing cars not for their use but to use in business in the form of Uber and Grab cars. I can probably understand those who bought cars and drove the cars themselves. To me, these would still qualify as ride-sharing/car-sharing but on the upper limit of what we can really consider “sharing” since they are supposed to be driving during their free times. Arguably, unemployed people have the entire day as free time compared with employed people or those who run businesses other than being Grab or Uber drivers. These include housewives and even “househusbands” who may have a vehicle at home that they can use for Uber or Grab. Employed people can only share their rides during the time they go to their offices or when they travel home later in the day. Others may have more free time as business people would likely have more flexible schedules.
Following is a series of screenshots I took en route to a meeting. It is, I believe, more systematic in terms of trying to determine the availability of vehicles – in this case GrabCars. Again, correct me if I’m wrong about my assumption that the vehicles displayed represent available cars. If they do not then it means the app is misleading people into thinking there are available cars for them to hire.
Grab Cars in the vicinity of UP Diliman
Grab Cars in the vicinity of Eastwood
Grab Cars in the vicinity of Tiendesitas
Grab Cars in the vicinity of Cainta Junction
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Global Street Design Guide
Here’s another quick post. I just wanted to share this article with a link to a Global Street Design Guide that was developed by the National Association of City Transport Officials (NACTO) in the United States (US). It’s a nice guide that’s based on the experiences of many cities in the US including transformations that have made commuting more efficient, enhanced mobility and, most important of all, improved safety. Following is the link to a more direct link to the guide:
NACTO and the Global Designing Cities Initiative Release Global Street Design Guide
This will be a good reference in the Philippines where many cities are in need of transformation to address current and future challenges in transportation. Planners, engineers and students should read this and use it to make our streets safer and more efficient in terms of mobility for all. It would be nice to see fresh ideas on how we can improve our streets not just in Metro Manila but elsewhere across the country. Of course, it would be nice if city planners of local government units (LGUs) can adopt this design guide parallel with efforts to improve public transport services. It should be understood that simply imposing lane allocations and traffic flow policies (one way?), for example, will not solve problems but may create more. The approach should always be integrated, inclusive. In other words, complete.
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Metro Manila public transport – addition is good but we need subtraction, too
The company providing the P2P bus services is very enthusiastic (aggressive?) in promoting their services especially via social media. Satisfied commuters have also shared their experiences and a lot of photos about the buses and their commutes through social and mainstream media. I have read some articles carried by the likes of Rappler and Inquirer as well as blogs relating about the buses features, what people liked about the service and their suggestions on how to further improve and expand services. These have provided commuters with a taste of how good public transport could be in terms of quality of service.
The operations and the operator seems to have the blessings of the Department of Transportation (DoTr) and not just the present administration but from the previous one when the P2P services started. The fact that they have expanded services further these past few months is a testament to their popularity and the demand for high quality public transport services in Metro Manila. I personally believe that the next step is to give these buses exclusive lanes along their routes. Such would allow for buses to travel faster and providing a significant decrease in the travel times of commuters. Current operations, despite having non-stop runs between origin and destination, run in mixed traffic so their impacts in terms of travel times are diminished. Also, with exclusive lanes, they can probably consider adding a few stops between the route ends and be able to simulate bus rapid transit (BRT) services of which there seems to be little appreciation so far in the Philippines.
While the new buses and routes are very welcome and provide attractive options for commuting, there is still a need to address what is perceived as an over-supply of buses, jeepneys and UV express vehicles in Metro Manila. The attractiveness and higher service quality of P2P buses can pave the way for reducing the numbers of buses, for example, along EDSA. A similar strategy of introducing high quality bus services along other corridors and then reducing bus, jeepney and UV express units there can be implemented but will require much in terms of political will. The latter is important when dealing with operators and drivers of displaced vehicles, who may oppose such transport reforms and probably throw in legal impediments including those pertaining to franchising. Whether such opposition can be addressed by emergency powers or not remains to be seen but hopefully, even without such powers, the government can engage the transport sector to effect reforms and improve public transport (and ultimately commuting in general) not just in Metro Manila but in other cities as well.
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Of accomplishments and legacies in transport
My colleagues and I have been talking about accomplishments and legacies. In particular, we had a spirited discussion about what we have been doing in terms of transportation projects that we have been involved in. I think everyone wants to have something physical to remember them by. And these should be positive and constructive and not memories of controversies or anomalies like those in major projects that will be associated with corruption or abnormalities in the processes by which the projects were implemented.
The ‘problem’ with being involved in policy making and planning is that these often lead to outputs such as reports and maybe even laws. If one is lucky enough then perhaps its in the form of a legislation rather than a Department Order. But those legislations and memos often do not acknowledge the people who contributed to its drafting. They will be associated with the politicians (e.g., senators and congressmen) and officials (e.g., secretaries, undersecretaries) who sponsored, co-sponsored or issued them. It will be good to have some sort of evidence to show and prove that you were instrumental in planning, designing and/or implementing a project.
The appointment of a new Department of Transportation (DoTr) Secretary in Art Tugade had me recalling our meeting with him to present the outcomes of our study on a major commercial development at Clark Freeport. He was appreciative of our work and mentioned that Clark had implemented many of the recommendations of the Master Plan we had developed for the Freeport back in 2010. All the major recommendations were implemented during Tugade’s watch at Clark. Following are the most notable ones:
The Mabalacat Gate and Public Transport Terminal of the Clark Free Port Zone
McArthur Highway – M.A. Roxas Highway – First Street rotunda
Clark Freeport main gate
The lead for these projects was Dr. Ricardo Sigua who is the one of the leading transportation engineers in the Philippines and currently the Director of the Institute of Civil Engineering of the University of the Philippines Diliman. He is also the head of the Road Safety Research Laboratory of the National Center for Transportation Studies where he is also a Research and Extension Fellow. Others involved in these projects were Dr. Karl Vergel, Dr. Noriel Christopher Tiglao and Dr. Jose Regin Regidor, all from UP Diliman and affiliated with the NCTS.
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10 principles for sustainable urban transport
We start October with a graphic on sustainable transport. I first saw this shared on social media (FB) by the Clean Air Asia. The organizations behind it are on the graphic itself so I don’t have to list them down for the reader. This is a good material to share and learn from especially for those who don’t have a clear idea of what sustainable transport is and is all about. As they say, pictures paint a thousand words. And illustrations such as this convey so much about sustainable transport in the urban setting in layman’s terms.
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Research topics for transportation engineering and planning for 2016-2017?
I observed from my site’s statistics that there have been a lot of interest on research topics in transportation engineering and planning. I regularly post on the undergraduate research topics our students have engaged in. At this point in the first semester of the current 2016-2017 academic year, topics have not yet been assigned and we have only learned how many students have been assigned to our research group. As such, we are still in the process of determining who takes on which topic. Following are topics we have identified in addition to those that had no takers the previous semesters:
Traffic engineering
- Anatomy of congestion along EDSA
- Anatomy of congestion along C-5
- Segregated lane for motorcycles
- Impacts of the MMDA’s truck lane policy along C-5
- Congestion study in the vicinity of UP Town Center
- Assessment of through traffic for the UP Diliman campus
Public transportation
- Connectivity study for UP AGT and MRT 7
- Feasibility of bus services beyond Masinag junction
- Characterization of Internal Public Transportation Operation in UP Diliman and Viability of Introduction of Electric Vehicles
- Modelling the Public Transport System of UP Diliman Campus Using CUBE Travel Demand Software
- Estimation of Passenger Demand for New Transit System for UP Diliman Using Discrete Choice Model
- Characteristics of motorcycle taxis in the Philippines [Habal-habal, skylab, etc.]
Road safety
- Severity of injuries of motorcycle riders (helmet and non-helmet users)
Pedestrian & non-motorised transport
- A study on walkability along Ortigas Avenue
- A study on the characteristics of bike share users in the UP Diliman campus
Transport & Environment
- Assessment of Roadside Air Quality along C.P. Garcia Avenue in the Vicinity of UP-ICE Compound
Other topics
- Study on the mobility of PWDs in Metro Manila
- Assessment of ridesharing in the context of sustainable transport
I’m sure there are other topics but I’m not aware of the specifics at present. Also, we welcome the ideas of our students should they already have topics in mind as long as these preferably fall under the research agenda of our Institute. The topics listed above may appear to be specific but these are still basically very general and can be refined after the students establish their scope and limitations. They can only do that once they have undertaken a decent enough literature review for them also to have a more firm appreciation of their chosen topics. I will post again on this later this year when students would have already put in substantial work on their research proposals (i.e., the objective for this semester).
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Caught (up) in traffic 