LTFRB conducts surveys on PUB reduction

The Land Transportation Regulatory and Franchising Board (LTFRB) will conduct starting this week a series of surveys that will help guide the agency in its program to decongest EDSA traffic through the reduction of public utility buses (PUBs).

LTFRB chairwoman Elena Bautista said there are more than 3,000 passenger buses plying EDSA daily.

The agency wants it trimmed down further to ease traffic and shorten travel time on the major thoroughfare.

"The surveys would help us determine how many buses are needed to ply EDSA," Bautista said, adding that colorum buses would also be targeted by the decongestion program.

Three waves of surveys would be done in cooperation with the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) and bus operators. The project will receive P500,000 funding from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).

The first set of surveys, which intends to determine bus occupancy, will be conducted on Nov. 22.

Bautista said researchers with identification cards would board buses on EDSA for four straight days.

She identified the boarding areas as Magallanes and Mantrade areas in Makati City; the stretch between Guadalupe and Boni Avenue in Mandaluyong City; North Avenue-MRT station area; and between Roosevelt Avenue and Balintawak, both in Quezon City.

Bautista said the surveys would help the agency draft a bus reduction program.