By Alexandria Dennise San Juan
Modern buses will soon be deployed in Metro Manila streets to augment the transportation needs of commuters particularly those inconvenienced by the constant breakdown of The Manila Metro Rail Transit System 3 (MRT Line 3) traversing EDSA.
Transportation Undersecretary for Road Transport and Infrastructure Tim Orbos said that the deployment of these modern buses is part of the government’s public utility vehicle modernization program.
Earlier this week, DoTr Secretary Arthur Tugade led the inspection of a protoype modern e-bus that will be added to the government’s fleet of P2P or point-to-point buses.
According to the DoTr, the modern buses can accommodate at least a hundred passengers. Closed-circuit television cameras are also installed inside the buses and will use an automatic fare collection system.
“This is also a help for those MRT riders. Generally, MRT can only carry, at the most, not more than a million passengers per day. Our passenger buses today are carrying around 1.3 million. Even on a full capacity of the MRT alone cannot cater millions of riders every day. We need to take care of the buses as a road transport measure,” Orbos said Tuesday.
The DoTr also noted a need for more buses as bus riders continue to increase. Based on the latest data from the Department, a total of 69,147 MRT passengers have been served by their bus augmentation program from Feb. 1 to Feb. 27.
Some bus units were deployed early February as an alternative for MRT-3 after it encountered glitches.
Orbos assured that these additional modern buses will not contribute to traffic in the metro since it will be equipped with large side doors for faster loading and unloading of passengers.
The DoTr is yet to announce how many units of these modern buses will be deployed and when.
