Philippines, Cebu world’s worst for drivers

ANGELES CITY, Philippines – The Philippines remains one of the worst countries to drive in, while Cebu City is the most miserable urban center on earth for motorists.

This was the verdict of the 2016 global drivers satisfaction survey of navigation app Waze, which asked millions of Waze users in 38 countries and 186 metropolitan areas about their driving experience.

Coming up with a single numeric score from satisfying (10) to miserable (1), the Waze Driver Satisfaction Index is based on six
criteria: traffic density, road quality like high speed roads, road safety, driver services like access to gas stations and parking, socio-economic like access to cars and gas price impact, and satisfaction with Waze.

Out of the 38 countries surveyed, the Philippines ranked 37th, just a notch above El Salvador.

By area, Cebu City landed at the bottom of 186 metros surveyed, with the most miserable overall score of 1.15.

Manila was 170th, with a sad score of 3.68, along with Tel Aviv in Israel.

The report revealed that while Cebu City got a miserable traffic rating of 0.58, Manila hit bottom in traffic severity, as it got the most miserable rating of 0.33.

Waze explained that while many traffic indices only look at a single quantifiable factor, such as time spent in traffic, its Driver Satisfaction Index measures both qualitative and quantifiable attributes to get “an unprecedented look” at what motorists go through in different parts of the globe.

“Waze has more than 65 million monthly active users globally in 185 countries,” the web navigation app said. “Waze chose to focus on countries and metros with more than 20,000 monthly active users to ensure data accuracy and fair market comparisons. This document showcases the data that was collected.”

Of the 186 metros surveyed, topping the list were France’s urban cities Valence, with the highest index rating of 8.81; Tours, 8.43; Lemans, 8.39; and Saint Etienne, 8.25.

Angeles City Mayor Edgardo Pamintuan, whose locality ranked 147th in the Waze survey with a middle index rating of 4.55, was neither convinced about nor impressed with the navigation app’s survey.

“We found out that it’s their own analysis. It’s not even a survey. It’s plain data and that is that,” Pamintuan said. “We cannot say that Cebu City is the worst in the world in terms of traffic situation. I cannot claim that Angeles City’s traffic is better than that of Rio de Janeiro, Honolulu, Quito, Kota Kinabalu, Singapore and Tel Aviv. That would be stretching the data too far. There are 4,416 cities worldwide and the Waze showed only the WDSI for 186 cities. To say that Cebu or Manila or Angeles are among the worst relative to traffic is incorrect, to say the least. Perhaps if they could present data for all the cities, then we can arrive at a more realistic conclusion.”