Another accident involving a dump truck

On our way to UP Village yesterday, we saw a large dump truck rammed into the frontage of Bo's Cafe at Katipunan. From what we could see at that time, the truck had crashed into several cars parked in front of the cafe. Data also saw a motorcycle pinned by the truck. 

A couple of people were hysterical and a crowd composed of curious and/or angry people had gathered around the scene. It looked like the truck driver was unhurt and if so, the mob would most probably give him a dose of "street justice".

Too bad we were in a hurry to take photos, but it was quite a disturbing scene. Data called our friend at the Inquirer so that the accident could be reported and added to the growing stats of recklessness among bus and truck drivers. 

Later, we read from the Inquirer that the driver had "lost control" of the truck. It's the standard excuse given by all truck and bus drivers. Harsher punishment must be meted out not just to the drivers but more importantly the truck and bus operators.

 

Read the Inquirer Story.

More expensive fuel means less traffic

On the brighter side of the perpetually rising cost of gas, Metro Manila's streets have become decongested. My proof is more anecdotal. I used to tear my hair out because of the craziness of the clogged and noisy streets. But now, even during rush hour, the streets are less noisy and there is less traffic when I drive out.

Of course, some of the decongestion can be attributed to the efforts of Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA) to get rid of illegal buses, taxis and the lot. But even the MMDA cannot be that efficient and it only took high gas prices to achieve what the lack of political will could not. 

After all, the streets became almost quiet and empty in the span of a few days and there is an eerie feeling of being in a sci-fi movie-- one where aliens pointed a ray gun on Metro Manila and zapped three-quarters of the vehicles. This is an effect that the pitiable efforts of MMDA could lay claim to.

And now for a quick review of the rippling impact of this development:

• Less people will go out to the malls.
• More peaceful streets, smoother commute/drive.
• But will also mean less business for malls (notably restaurants and other shops).
• Still, food deliveries will thrive. 
• If we had a better e-commerce industry, this would have gained a needed boost as more people would prefer to buy things online and have them delivered.
• Yet, I hope there was better mass transportation. More people have now be forced to use public transportation but the MRT, as most of us know, cannot absorb this increase in volume. 

Bad Transport Websites; Missing Train Schedules

I am writing a piece on Metro Manila for an online travel guide. It's pretty interesting, because I learned more about the broken services in our city.

For instance, yesterday I discovered that we do not have a website for our international airport (which our friend Urbano dela Cruz found out a year ago).

Today, I discovered how lousy our government websites really are.

But before we launch into this, let's first do some comparisons. In California, Australia, UK and other countries with rail systems, they post trip information (schedules, fares, contact numbers) in their websites. They also publish maps indicating the stops.
The picture above is of BART (Bay Area Rapit Transit) that serves San Francisco and the Bay Area in California. Let's compare:

• BART has a terminal right in the middle of the airport. Our light rail does not.
  
• BART's website, if you look closely, contains a tool for finding schedules and destinations on the upper left corner of the site, which, in usability, is a prominent location. This makes the information easily findable.
• The main buttons on BART's website are: Stations & Schedules, Tickets, Rider Guide, News, and About BART. PNR's cluttered website has: (top navigation) Services, Projects, News, Search; and a secondary navigation bar on the left, containing: About Us, PNR Officials, Directory (where the station information is hidden away), Government Links, Jobs, Feedback and Mail.
  

Even without lessons from other countries, it is common sense in any sane public service to anticipate what information and assistance the public will need, and that this information be easily accessible or findable, especially in a medium like the web.

Our 4 Rail Systems

We essentially have 4 rail systems: LRT1, LRT2, MRT3 (servicing the metropolis) and the Philippine National Railways (PNR), which traverses most of Luzon. If memory serves me right, Asia's first extensive rail system was built right here in the Philippines, to carry produce like sugar cane, rice, copra and tobacco (the first tracks resulted from a decree by the King of Spain in 1875, according to the PNR website). This linked Pangasinan, Tarlac, Pampanga, Bulacan, Manila and all the way to Legazpi in Bicol. (The first light rail in Asia was supposed to be the ones operated by Meralco in Escolta).

I remember in the 1970s that the train in our town (San Fernando, Pampanga) still brought passengers to as far as Legazpi. What happened after that? Why did our rail system fall into disrepair?

Finding Useful Train Information

I am not yet sure about the answer to the questions above. What I would like to talk about here is the difficulty of finding useful information for passengers. Ironically, I can get more info about the schedules of BART in San Francisco than our schedules at PNR or MRT3.

Web Usability of our Train Websites

The PNR website is ugly, unfriendly to Firefox or Safari (I could not even click the tabs), and largely full of useless information. Instead of giving schedules and terminals, for example, it gives out the names of its officials and its Vision and Mission. Who cares? We just want to get from A to B!


Actually, PNR does give out a list of telephone numbers for something called MLS, which appear to be stations -- but how will travellers know that this information is hidden under a button called MLS that is in turn hidden in a button called directory?

LRT1, LRT2 and MRT3 are a testament to the lack of communication, careful planning and smooth transition among our government officials and agencies. While the officials and agencies squabble, these three light rail systems do not have a unified ticketing. Nor do they have a unified website.

LRT1 and LRT2 reside on the same website, because they are operated by the Light Rail Transit Authority (LRTA). LRTA's website is a bit more neat in design than PNR's. It also had schedules for LRT1 and LRT2.

However, if you try a web search for "LRT2 schedules" alone, the top results do not point to the correct website.

MRT3 has a website, built no less than in Drupal, but contains no schedule. It does have a funny button named "How to Ride".
Ironically, our train schedules and destinations aren't that complicated, compared to those in other countries. Why can't PNR and MRT3 publish them?

These signs of neglect indicate a lack of commitment to providing really good service to the public, signs that may be seen in other websites like that of the South Luzon Expressway (SLEX).

Realizations from the SLEX Website

My travel piece also had a guide on SLEX and NLEX. Since SLEX is under repair, I wanted to advice travellers when the road works are expected to end. After some googling, I found the website of the South Luzon Tollways Corp (SLTC) which operates SLEX.

There were many announcements, press releases and much ballyhoo about the expansion project... but no expected completion date. This surely is a symptom of lack of commitment to complete projects on schedule!

After more googling, I finally found the expected completion date (late 2008) at Manila Standard's website.

Where's Our Airport on the Web?

Sometimes the state of government service may be gleaned from unexpected places. Take a website, for example. There are solid reasons why a government should keep a well-maintained and well-designed website, or websites, for its various agencies and functions.

Our country wants to boost its tourism and participation in the global trade, for example, and creating a website on this would be highly beneficial. If we expect many visitors, then it also makes sense to create websites for our transportation system, notably our airports, rail and ideally, bus systems.

I tried checking the website of our airport (http://www.miaa.gov.ph/) but found, horrors, that the site is being redirected to an IP address (http://125.60.203.88/miaa). In terms of web findability, this is the worst crime you could commit. It probably also explains why, if you search for "Philippine international airport" or even the more specific "Ninoy Aquino International Airport" the first page of results do not even include the URL to NAIA.

What's even worst, the redirected link results to an error. I was better off visiting the NAIA entry at Wikipedia -- and that's a sad thing.