What to do with junk jeepneys?

There’s no choice but to phase out jeepneys. They do not meet today’s standards for land transport. Jeepneys are dirty, rickety, risky. Engines are reconditioned diesel-combustions. Clanks are un-muffled. The rear entry-exit is wrong. No jeepney will pass the Euro-4, noise pollution, and safety standards. They are hazards to health, environment, and safety.

But where to dump all the jeepneys? Thousands of 15-year and older units no longer will be registered because flunking emission tests. They cannot be sold as family vehicles. If they are unfit for public convenience, then so for private use. Neither can the motors be cannibalized for bancas. They will only trouble the waterways.

Old jeepneys should be treated as junk. Parts and components can be dismantled for recycling. Metal scraps can be melted in electric-arc furnaces, to be fashioned into other machines, steel bars, and tools. New uses can be found for rubber, wood, plastic, glass, fiber glass, coir, and other parts. So with fluids and lubricants. There will always be innovators and factories in need.

Land transport agencies seriously must start helping owners of junk jeepneys to sell them for scrap. The Board of Investments can re-broadcast its offers and benefits for pioneers in materials-recovery facilities. They will have 250,000 junk jeepneys to work on.

Not only jeepneys but all fossil-fuel land vehicles will soon become junk. That means practically all the five million cars, vans, buses, trucks, SUVs, motorcycles, tricycles – even modified hand tractors – presently on the road. The advent of battery-powered vehicles has made them all obsolete. Just plug the engine to an electrical outlet for a few hours’ charging, and the battery can run for triple the time. Solar panels and the vehicle’s own momentum boost the engine runtime.

Battery-powered vehicles emit no harmful carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and nitrogen oxides. They are naturally silent. New designs will put safety first.

Most European carmakers have begun to retool factories to produce hybrids that run on gas and battery. By 2023-2025, all small and large vehicle makes will be hybrid. America, Japan, Korea, China, and Russia are expected to follow suit. Transport planners foresee the transition to be completed by 2028-2030. By then the hybrids will give way to pure battery-, solar-, and momentum-powered units.

About that time too mass transport tremendously would have improved. (Yes, in spite of the crooks behind the MRT-3.) Trains would be running on batteries too, and fast due to magnetic levitation. Theft- and tamper-proof bikes-for-rent would be in vogue; they already are in more than a hundred cities in Europe, America, and Asia. Ride-hailing services, like Uber and Grab, will replace not only conventional taxis but also personal cars. People will no longer be buying cars but rides. And those cars of the future will be driverless; artificial intelligence and deep learning will see to that. This early city planners are designing urban centers with no more giant shopping malls and parking lots; technology would make online shopping most economical and convenient; deliveries will be made by drones and robots.

Today’s vehicles – starting with jeepneys – do not stand a chance. Good money will be those placed in inevitable changes. Foremost are the scrap works on junk vehicles. The important thing is to be there when they fire the starting gun.

*      *      *

Catch Sapol radio show, Saturdays, 8-10 a.m., DWIZ (882-AM).

Gotcha archives on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jarius-Bondoc/1376602159218459, or The STAR website http://www.philstar.com/author/Jarius%20Bondoc/GOTCHA