By ALEXANDRIA DENNISE SAN JUAN
More passengers could now travel across regions as the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) allowed some 429 UV Express units and 20 provincial buses to resume operations starting Monday.
According to the LTFRB, the additional units will ply the six UV Express routes and two provincial bus routes to be opened based on its Memorandum Circular (MC) 2020-074 and 2020-075.
Under LTFRB’s Memorandum Circular 2020-074, the following UV Express routes were added by the agency to ferry more commuters:
- Calumpit (Bulacan) – Central Integrated Terminal (Quezon Avenue)
- Cogeo – Cubao via Marcos Highway
- Cubao – Padilla via Ermin Garcia, Marcos Highway
- Robinson’s Cainta – Edsa Central
- Alabang – Imus Toll Bridge
- SM North EDSA – SM Fairview
Meanwhile, the two provincial bus routes to be opened based on MC 2020-063 are Davao City to Tacloban City and Davao City to Ormoc City.
This brings the total number of provincial bus routes approved by the LTFRB to 27, covering 680 units, while UV Express routes are now 118 with 6,755 units since the enforcement of a general community quarantine.
Passengers, as well as drivers and operators, were reminded to strictly observe safety protocols such as monitoring of body temperature, mandatory wearing face masks and face shields, and compliance with the one-seat apart rule.
The LTFRB said that it is continuously assessing more routes to be opened to accommodate more passengers as many workers continued to go back on the road as the economy reopens under the more relaxed community quarantine.
