By Anna Liza Villas-Alavaren
The Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) has lifted the number-coding scheme for provincial buses on December 22 (Friday) and December 26 (Tuesday) to ensure that there will be sufficient buses to ferry passengers to the provinces this Christmas season.
Bong Nebrija, MMDA operations supervisor, said the agency has decided to suspend the Unified Vehicle Volume Reduction Program (UVVRP) for provincial buses to accommodate the influx of passengers wanting to travel to their provinces early for the holidays. Around 3,300 provincial buses are expected to benefit from it.
“The Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) has issued special permits for hundreds of buses to address the exodus of passengers so we want to help them out in support of LTFRB’s policies,” said Nebrija.
The special permit allows operators to have special trips or send their bus units outside their specific routes to address the high demand in some routes.
Based on their monitoring, Nebrija said province-bound people have crowded terminals since Thursday.