In an effort to enhance its public transportation system, Puerto Princesa City recently conducted the Local Public Transport Route Plan Simulation Exercise (LPTRP SimEx) last December 7-8, 2023. This strategic initiative, influenced by similar exercise in Bacolod City, aimed to test and evaluate new transport routes across the city. The Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) led and planned the first SimEx in June 2023 in Bacolod City and invited SafeTravelPH as a technical partner for trip and ridership data collection, and route and network analyses.
The exercise allows the drivers/operators to use the SafeTravelPH mobile application and participate in the monitoring and evaluation of various aspects of route service operations such as passenger demand, transport supply characteristics, and the viability of proposed routes, and in identifying potential operational challenges (such as those reported by Palawan News, https://palawan-news.com/lptrp-simex-reveals-struggles-in-new-transport-routes-in-puerto-princesa-city/).
The vehicles of drivers who used the SafeTravelPH app for trip and boarding/alighting tracking can be viewed realtime via the Commute module of the app.
A paper based on the learning and the new innovative network-based analysis of routes for determining the fleet size per route was submitted by members of SafeTravelPH and technical staff from the Department of Transportation wast presented last December 7, 2023 during the Transport Science Society of the Philippines (TSSP) Conference.
The full paper will be soon available in the Philippine Transport Journal. SafeTravelPH advocates for participative planning and governance through the use of modern technologies for faster data collection and presentation, that can facilitate more transparent and information-based multi-sectoral focus discussions in the locality. This also is expected to bring trust building among government and industry actors in public transport service.
The City Government of Puerto Princesa has been a technology R&D partner of SafeTravelPH since the development of the city's ISTOPP web app, or the Information System on Transport Operations in Puerto Princesa. This was developed under the NEDA (National Economic and Development Authority) Innovation Grant.
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