The Cost of Traffic CongestionPart3 - The solution

While the "social costs" seen in Part 2 seem to be more relevant in addressing traffic congestion, it is the economic costs in Part 1, which are counted whenever traffic, or its solution, is studied and projects are prepared. For one, it's difficult to monetize social costs, and secondly, the solutions considering the economic costs certainly address the social costs, too. So, traffic solutions are measured in terms of economic benefits.

Trips on the LRT and or MRT are not considered in the economic costs estimation, and the reason is on the very definition of traffic congestion itself. We say there is congestion when the number of cars or vehicles on the road is huge and almost equal, or even higher, than the capacity of the road itself to carry vehicles. You'll notice that the assumption is there is mixed traffic or cars, motorcycles, tricycles, jeepneys, buses -all kinds, each competing for road space. The more vehicles there are, the slower the travel speed, the longer the travel time, and the higher the economic costs, in terms of lost productivity.

When you go to mass transport, two things happen. First, you separate the passenger-carrying vehicle into a dedicated traveling-way (rail tracks for monorails, LRTs, MRTs, etc., and bus lanes for BRT), and second, you introduce a service plan for a definite origin and destination with a specific frequency. The segregation separates the service from the chaotic mixed traffic; the service plan increases the "lane" moving capacity, five to 10 times, or even more. When you're congested, you can do two things -add land space, or make existing land space more efficient many times over. The latter is more efficient!

True mass transport generally refers to segregated, fixed-destination, fixed-frequency movement of people. Traffic congestion is a problem of vehicles; it is not a problem, but a symptom of a problem -the need to move people. Solving traffic congestion is like trying to cure pneumonia with paracetamol -you only alleviate the symptom (fever) but not the problem (infection). The only real solution to our goal to transport people is mass transportation, either bus-based, or rail-based. As far as the Monorail/LRT/MRT/Metro and BRT is concerned, the only difference between them is that the former has steel wheels, the latter, rubber. All other system specifications are the same.

So, when we look for solutions to alleviate the costs of traffic congestion, we better make sure we do that -alleviate costs. Any fifth grader or high school graduate will easily understand it does not make sense to solve the cost of traffic congestion by introducing a solution costlier than the traffic congestion! That's why transport solutions are evaluated on the basis of their economic viability, not on their trimmings or "bells and whistles." But the most important factor is still their ability to address the social costs. Are we helping the majority who are poor instead of providing solutions which will benefit the rich elite the most?