Oil Price hike and Transport groups

It has become clear that oil prices in this country will continue to rise week after week after week, need I really say more? One solution that everyone is waiting and hoping for is lifting that additional VAT in oil prices. Honestly it will help, but as they say all it can really do is delay the inevitable. Well at least a lot of us will still be able to smile a couple of months more if they can just remove that vat. Transport groups are also clamoring for a price increase and declaring a transport holiday. It kind makes matters worse for the common Filipino who now pays for higher price rice, commodities, and now their daily jeepney fares.

Some people think that I maybe a bit extreme, but do try to see through what I would like to explain for a couple of minutes. Do transport groups really deserve a fair hike? What is really the cause of them losing income? I believe that this transport group should be given the chance to maximize their income not just by lowering the prices of oil or increasing their fares but by lowering the number of jeepneys, buses, tricycles etc.

See I told you I would be a bit extreme. But, if you do ride jeepneys it would occur to you that often times 1 jeepney will only carry 5 passengers, not even half of what they can really carry. Or in another situation you will see about 5-10 jeepneys forming a line at a corner of a street waiting there for hours just to be filled with passengers. My point is we have an alarming excess of transport vehicles. This fact alone causes a lot of problems such as congestion of traffic, air pollution, excessive consumption of oil of course, and my all time favorite, excessive number of undisciplined, reckless drivers on the street!

There should be a law controlling the number of how many transport vehicles should there be to accommodate the number of people in that particular city. And to put it to an even higher level, there should be jeepney stops, or even a set of particular time when jeepneys can stop at a certain place to collect their passengers. By reducing the amount of transport vehicles in Metro Manila alone, we will greatly reduce gasoline consumption. The few selected vehicles that will be able to comply with the standards set by this law will now be able to maximize their income because there wouldn’t be a lot of jeepneys lying around with only a couple of passengers in them.

Let’s just face the truth; back in the old days being in the transportation business is indeed profitable. But now oil prices have soared and the number of transport vehicles trying to compete each other for the very same passengers have gone crazy high, it’s really about time for some of them to look for another business. The government should now have a higher set of qualifications or rules to select on how anyone can be part of the transport group. This way maybe, just maybe we will finally see disciplined drivers in Manila.