DOTr Looks Into Privatizing Edsa Carousel

The Department of Transportation is looking into privatizing the EDSA Carousel bus in 2023.

DOTr Secretary Jaime Bautista has mentioned that the busway “must conform to international standards” as this has been a huge rise in the number of passengers since the beginning of its operations.

“The DOTr will continue to improve the services and infrastructure of the EDSA Busway. The EDSA Busway must conform to international standards. There’s a lot to do here,”  mentioned Bautista.

“As more passengers are being catered to by the busway system, we need to improve its efficiency.”

This comes after the Libreng Sakay program offering free rides was extended but set to end on December 31, 2022.

By December 2022 figures, the EDSA Busway Project has been carrying an average of 389, 579 passengers on an everyday basis. The Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board has mentioned that it wants to add 100 units to the busway, targeting to service over 500,000 passengers with a total of 650 units per day.

The EDSA Busway makes use of a specified median lane for buses with stations built at the median island, which makes for efficient travel. Currently, the busway has 17 median stations with four temporary curbside stations and an Integrated Terminal Exchange.

It was the Management Association of the Philippines (MAP) that submitted its proposal to privatize the Edsa Carousel busway operation and orient the project with measurable performance metrics basing it off the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy’s busway standards.

“The upgrade will complete the EDSA busway, a work in progress, scale up its capacity and raise it to the level of global standards to optimize the system to achieve its full potential as a cost-effective, efficient, high-capacity urban mass public transport system commensurate to the high commuter density of EDSA, and to ensure long-term sustainability to serve its role as the complementary mass transport to the Metro Rail Transit Line 3,” mentioned the MAP.

Source: Philstar