It’s not only the final month of the year that we’re ushering in tomorrow: Effective December 1, 2021, the reimplementation of number coding will also kick in, the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) has confirmed. Merry Christmas.
As mentioned in our previous story, the coding hours will be from 5pm to 8pm, Mondays to Fridays, except holidays. This modified scheme is expected to reduce vehicular traffic on EDSA alone by around 2,700 vehicles, according to Neomie Recio, Traffic Discipline Office director of the MMDA.
The agency added that the current traffic situation on our roads is approaching pre-pandemic levels, with the average travel speed on EDSA northbound down to just 9.66kph. “Hence, we have to reinstate the number coding scheme during the afternoon rush hours to address the problem,” MMDA chairman Benhur Abalos explained in a press conference today. “We are trying to exhaust all options here.”
“The solution to this problem is efficient traffic management and mass transport system.”
Public utility vehicles (including tricycles) and transport network vehicle services (TNVS) are exempted from the modified number coding scheme. The same goes for motorcycles, garbage trucks, fuel trucks, and vehicles carrying essentials or perishable goods.
A modified light truck ban on EDSA, from Magallanes in Makati City to North Avenue in Quezon City, will also take effect tomorrow. The ban will be based on the vehicles’ license-plate endings as well, and will be implemented from 5am to 9pm, Mondays to Fridays, except holidays. ‘Light trucks’ are defined as any motor vehicle, whether for commercial use or not, with a gross capacity weight of 4,500kg or below and/or having six or more tires, the payload of which are either enclosed or open. They will be prohibited from plying the aforementioned stretch of EDSA on the specified hours during their coding days.
Finally, the total truck ban for vehicles with a gross capacity weight of over 4,500kg remains strictly enforced on the same stretch of EDSA. Garbage trucks, fuel trucks, and trucks carrying essentials or perishable goods are exempted. Truck-ban hours remain suspended elsewhere in the NCR.
