Malacanang assures public that traffic congestion problem continues to be addressed

Manila traffic (Photo courtesy of PanoBaMagBlog on WordPress)

MANILA  — A Palace official on Thursday said the government continues to improve infrastructure in the country to address among others the problem on traffic congestion.

”Patuloy namang tinutukoy ang suliraning ito sa pamamagitan ng pagpapahusay ng imprastruktura, sa pagpapahusay ng traffic management, at sa patuloy ring panawagan sa mga mamamayan na makiisa (We continue to address this issue by improving infrastructure and traffic management and by calling for everyone’s cooperation),” Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO) Secretary Hermnio Coloma Jr said.

This after the country placed 9th among 88 countries and fourth in Asia in terms of having the worst traffic based on the survey by Numbeo, the world’s largest database of crowd-sourced information.

The survey took into account the average commuting time, commuting dissatisfaction, traffic inefficiencies, and carbon dioxide emissions.

Coloma said the unified vehicular volume reduction scheme (UVVRP), commonly known as number coding, is being implemented to help control the number of vehicles on the road on a given day.

Under this program, vehicles with plate number ending in 1 and 2 are banned on major thoroughfares in most cities of Metro Manila from 7am to 7pm on Monday, those ending with 3 and 4, Tuesday; 5 and 6, Wednesday; 7 and eight, Thursday and 9 and zero, Friday.

However, there are certain window hours for the UVVRP implementation in some cities while others do not implement the program.

Coloma said the government continues to study ways to further address traffic congestion in the country.

He also disclosed that the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA) recently approved a recommendation by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) regarding a long-term traffic management and infrastructure program in Metro Manila.

”(The program was formulated) in order to address the traffic congestion situation,” he added.