It’s all systems go for PUBs number coding on Monday

The Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) will deploy 1,800 traffic enforcers metro-wide on Monday to ensure the full implementation of the number coding scheme on public utility buses (PUBs).

MMDA Chairman Francis Tolentino yesterday ordered the cancellation of day-offs of all agency traffic personnel to guarantee the effective enforcement of the Unified Vehicular Volume Reduction Program (UVVRP) scheme on PUBs.

“It’s all systems go on Monday. We will be issuing traffic violation tickets to offenders as we have informed the bus operators regarding the re-implementation of the scheme beforehand and they all agreed so there will be no excuse and nobody will be spared,” Tolentino said.

According to Tolentino, informative signages have been installed along the major thoroughfares and the South and North Luzon Expressways (Slex and Nlex) to advise the public that the number coding on PUBs will be in effect starting Nov. 15.

Around 13,000 PUBs, provincial and city, are expected to be covered by the scheme. More than 1,000 of these vehicles will be affected by the UVVRP scheme daily.

Traffic enforcers will be dispatched strategically to Slex and Nlex exits to apprehend provincial buses entering Metro Manila in violation of the number coding scheme.

The Philippine National Police will lend some of its buses to MMDA and will put them on standby together with its own five buses on strategic areas to accommodate and ferry passengers of violators to the various terminals.

Hundreds of personnel from the Roadways Clearing Operations Group and Sidewalk Clearing Operations Group will also be deployed to assist passengers from the provinces with baggage.

Foreseeing numerous violators, the agency will also use White Plains as temporary holding area for buses whose drivers or conductors will resist apprehension from traffic enforcers.

Tolentino said he received reports that several provincial bus firms had threatened to defy the MMDA in the enforcement of UVVRP.

“Should they try to resist we will detain their drivers and conductors and hold their buses until 7 in the evening,” the MMDA chief warned.

Tolentino proposed the reimplementation of number coding to PUBs as part of the agency’s efforts to decongest Edsa and other major thoroughfares.

The number coding for buses will be enforced from 7 a.m. until 7 p.m. But unlike the private vehicles and other PUVs, there will be no window hours of 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. for PUBs.

After a series of consultative meetings, bus companies and operators agreed to comply with the traffic scheme, which was then approved by the MMDA’s governing body, the Metro Manila Council (MMC).

PUBs were originally covered by UVVRP but bus operators sought and secured an exemption from Malacañang in 2004. –Pat C. Santos, Daily Tribune