The Department of Transportation (DOTr) is proposing to the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) to increase the passenger capacity in public transportation to 100 percent in Metro Manila.
The agency said it was ready to defend its recommendation to increase the passenger capacity in public transportation with pilot implementation in Metro Manila before the IATF-EID on October 28, 2021.
Assistant Secretary for Road Transport and Infrastructure Steve Pastor said the recommendation was to increase passenger capacity in public transport to help drivers and operators amid the pandemic and the continued increase of fuel prices.
Pilot implementation will be in Metro Manila, now under Alert Level 3, which allows for more businesses to open, and more people going out, which resulted in greater demand for public transport.
"Studies have shown that reliance on complete face mask use and partial hand sanitizer use were proven enough to contain three very modest COVID-19 waves while preserving normal bus services," the agency said.
"Other studies have also revealed that passengers in the high-risk zones (seats in the same row with an infected passenger and within 3 rows) had moderate but not significantly higher risk, and that 'rigid' safe distancing rules are an oversimplification based on outdated science and experiences of past viruses," it added.
The DOTr also said the livelihood of public transport drivers and operators was severely affected with passenger capacity in public transport maintained at 50 percent.
"Increasing passenger capacity will mean a higher revenue for the public transport sector. This will be a welcome development considering the increase in expenses brought by increasing fuel prices," it added.
DOTr added that Metro Manila was the ideal place to test the proposal considering that 81.4 percent of its population was now fully vaccinated against COVID-19. In addition, public utility jeepneys and buses operating in Metro Manila are well-ventilated.
The DOTr said it had also conducted a rapid analysis of available data on COVID-19 cases (7-day average cases per one million population) and public transport capacity, which covered 10 countries (Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, China, Australia, Vietnam, and Malaysia).
"It was found out that public transport capacity has no significant correlation with the number of COVID-19 cases," DOTr said.
Meanwhile, Metro Manila Development Authority Chairman Benjamin Abalos Jr. himself said their recent vehicular traffic analysis along the capital's main EDSA highway suggested 59 percent for cars and 1 percent only for buses – while doing studies on the suspension of the number coding for vehicles along the road.