COUNCILORS describe the results of the TomTom Traffic Index as “unfair” and “exaggerated” as the city only experiences congestion during rush hours.
The monitoring website earlier published a survey ranking the city as the 8th most traffic congested worldwide and top in the country, with Metro Manila coming in at 14th.
Councilor Conrado Baluran, chairperson of the committee on transportation, said during the Aprubado sa Konseho on Tuesday that peak hours only occur from 6-8 a.m. and 4-7 p.m., which means motorists and passengers only experience gridlock for about two hours.
“It’s unfair that they place Davao City as problematic traffic and 8th most congested,” Baluran stressed.
Baluran stressed that Metro Manila has more or less 3.7 million registered vehicles (1.9 million motorcycles and 1.7 million cars) excluding the trucks and buses plying EDSA compared to Davao City with “conservative” numbers of 155,481 registered vehicles.
Councilor Jesus Joseph Zozobrado, chairperson of the committee on rules, said aside from peak hours, traffic in the city is caused by road expansions, widening, and delays of projects such as the High Priority Bus System (HPBS), which affects the transport sector.
The Davao Public Transport Modernization Project, initiated by then-city mayor and now vice president Sara Duterte, aims to modernize the transportation system from jeepneys to buses.
“Somehow, this has caused a lot of problems to us because the traffic signalization system is aligned with the HPBS, hence the city government is yet to fix the system since it has to harmonize with the HPBS,” Zozobrado stressed.
As a temporary solution, the city implemented the Peak Hours Augmentation Bus System (PHABS) to cater to the riding public during rush hours.
Zozobrado added that internal traffic will be eased once the bypass road in Ulas and the coastal road are completed.
“Davao City is far away from Manila, our traffic here is only during peak hours, while in Manila all the time traffic, so the survey is baseless. I do not believe in that survey,” he said.
