P1.5T lost to traffic jams in 10 years - UP paper

MANILA, Philippines - Ten years of traffic jams in Metro Manila have cost motorists and workers some P1.513 trillion, a paper by Dr. Jose Regin Regidor of the National Center for Transportation Studies (NCTS) at the University of the Philippines said.

Regidor's paper factored-in fuel costs and potential man-hour lost while being stucked in traffic, especially during the rainy season.

According to the paper, which is based on a 2000 NCTS study on traffic congestion, fuel costs while being stucked in traffic add up to P4.212 billion a year while time wasted while being stucked in a traffic jam, which could have been spent at work, was computed at P137.519 billion.

The paper was presented during the UP College of Engineering Professorial Chair Colloquium last year.

The paper proposed that as a measure to minimize the negative cost of traffic congestion, the government should invest more on mass transport infrastructure
that would make use of private-public partnerships.

"While total reduction of congestion would be impossible, strong efforts to improve transportation infrastructure for Metro Manila including much delayed mass transport systems would surely translate into benefits. Such benefits include increased productivity and perhaps a healthier metropolitan population," the paper read.

"It is clear that investing in transportation infrastructure is imperative to reduce congestion and the costs associated with traffic jams. Continued procrastination over projects that should have been implemented years ago will only lead to more losses in productivity. The government needs to understand this, and should aggressively pursue ways to implement such projects that would significantly reduce congestion," the paper added.