NO CODING FOR HIGH OCCUPANCY CARPOOLS

NO CODING FOR HIGH OCCUPANCY CARPOOLS

Let me state my bias upfront: the purpose of number coding is traffic reduction, not driver punishment. If that is the real objective—and it should be—then it is baffling that Metro Manila continues to ignore one of the most obvious, cheapest, and fastest traffic management tools available to us: incentivizing high-occupancy vehicles.

As of February 2026, there is still no MMDA-wide exemption from the Expanded Unified Vehicular Volume Reduction Program (UVVRP) for carpools or high-occupancy vehicles (HOVs). Whether you are alone in your car or carrying four co-workers, coding applies just the same on EDSA, C5, Commonwealth, and most major roads. One car, one penalty—passenger count be damned.

That approach may be simple to enforce, but it is also stubbornly illogical.

Common sense tells us that the more people we pack into one vehicle, the fewer vehicles we send onto the road. Fewer vehicles mean less congestion, lower fuel consumption, reduced emissions, and faster travel times for everyone—including public transport. It creates a positive domino effect that benefits commuters, businesses, and even government fuel imports.

Yet, despite this, carpooling remains officially unrewarded.

We have tried this before. During the pandemic, the MMDA experimented with a modified coding scheme that exempted vehicles carrying two or more passengers. That rule has since expired and, puzzlingly, no serious follow-up was done to assess its long-term viability as a traffic solution rather than an emergency measure.

Fast forward to 2026, and we see the same resistance. The Department of Transportation recently rejected a proposal to allow high-occupancy vehicles—those carrying ten or more passengers—to use the EDSA Busway. The reason cited was that it might slow down public transport. Fair enough. The Busway should remain sacred. But must every carpool incentive automatically involve the Busway? Surely, policy imagination should not be that limited.

At the local level, there have been flickers of innovation. Pasig City, for example, has historically allowed carpool exemptions for vehicles with four or more passengers on certain local roads. The problem, of course, is jurisdiction. The moment you exit Pasig and enter an MMDA-controlled highway, the exemption evaporates. Fragmented rules lead to fragmented compliance.

Ironically, we already accept the principle of incentives. Under the Electric Vehicle Industry Development Act (RA 11697), electric and hybrid vehicles are permanently exempt from number coding—regardless of passenger count. If we can reward cleaner engines, why can we not reward fuller seats?

For now, motorists are left with the usual coding arithmetic: plate endings, morning and evening bans, and narrow window hours from 10:01 a.m. to 4:59 p.m.—except in cities like Makati and Las Piñas, where coding can stretch from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. with no mercy and no windows.

So here are the uncomfortable questions: If traffic volume is the enemy, why are we discouraging shared rides? Why are four people in four cars treated better than four people in one? And why does policy still favor vehicle ownership patterns that waste fuel, road space, and time?

We keep saying Metro Manila has a traffic crisis. Perhaps the real crisis is our refusal to reward behavior that actually helps solve it.

RAMON IKE V. SENERES

www.facebook.com/ike.seneres iseneres@yahoo.com senseneres.blogspot.com 09088877282/03-21-2027