MANILA, Philippines?Any driver on the North Luzon Expressway (NLEx) will notice it easily: there are fewer cars on the road.

The average number of so-called "class 1" vehicles?mainly passenger cars?going through the main northern artery leading to and from Metro Manila has dropped sharply, according to the operator of the country's newest and most modern toll roadway.

In July, an average of only 97,949 cars drove through NLEx per day, representing a 12-percent decline from the same period last year.

The reason? Times are tough and people are using theirs cars less, it seems.

Indeed, there was a time when most upwardly mobile professionals would not be caught dead taking public transportation.

Most preferred to drive their way?or be driven?to and from work in the convenience and comfort of their air-conditioned cars.

But the times are a-changing.

Commuting

Nowadays, even lawyers and businessmen find that taking public transportation to work can be a more practical way of traveling.

"There was a time when I could use up P60 worth of gasoline, at P30 per liter, to drive from Sta. Mesa to Makati and back every day," Conrad Tolentino says. "It seemed even cheaper than commuting [back then]."

"But now, P80 spent daily to commute is such a big difference from shelling out P500 for gasoline that will only last two days," adds the 37 year-old lawyer who lives in Sta. Mesa and works in Makati City.

Until early this year, spending P500 on gasoline would last him a whole week of driving to and from work. At today's prices, however, the same amount lasts him only two days.

"So around March, I stopped driving altogether and turned to commuting," he says.

A year ago, another lawyer, Rejie Jularbal, 53, decided to try the Metro Rail Transit (MRT) system.

"I requested my wife, Linda, to drive me to the Trinoma mall in Quezon City [where] I took the MRT [and] got off at the Ayala station which is connected to the Glorietta and Greenbelt malls," he says. "From there I would take a five-minute walk to [my] office [on] Perea Street in Makati."

Jularbal says practicality was the main reason he was taking the MRT. "It's fast and simple. And then you even save a lot on gasoline costs, time, and parking fees."

Indeed, a visible increase in the number of passengers cramped inside elevated train stations in Metro Manila has led to the notion that car owners are abandoning their "wheels" in favor of public transport.

At first glance, this would seem so.

LRT ridership up

The latest data from the Light Rail Transit Authority (LRTA) show that the combined ridership of its two lines leaped to 562,264 per day in August, from only 399,187 per day in July-a spike of 40.8 percent in a single month.

While there was a palpable drop in ridership in July compared with the same period last year, the August 2008 data showed a 19.7-percent annual increase over the comparable 2007 numbers.

The average daily ridership on the Metro Rail Transit (MRT) system also rose to 425,733 in July 2008 and 412,807 in August 2008 compared with the same period last year-annual increases of 5.2 percent for both months.

But empirical evidence also reveals that the conversion from cars to rail, while significant, is also capped by practical concerns and simple habit.

At best, data pointing to any correlation between the increase in the number of rail commuters and the decline in road traffic volume remains limited.

Traffic regulators offer testimonials and estimates that there may have been a 3-percent reduction in the number of cars plying Edsa since the start of the year, but hard numbers are difficult to come by.

The volume of traffic through the NLEx and the South Luzon Expressway (SLEx), however, if used as substitute indicators, would show that the reduction in vehicular traffic is marginal.

The NLEx, where the majority of vehicles belong to Class 1 (cars and light sport utility vehicles), posted less than a one-percent (.009) decrease to 109,967 per day in June from 111,000 per day in May, according to the latest available data.

The daily average of Class 1 vehicles going through SLEx, meanwhile, declined by only 2 percent to 135,114 in July from 138,106 as of end-June.

Fare increase

There was a relatively consistent decline in NLEx and SLEx's Class 1 traffic, but these recorded declines did not always coincide with the spikes in train passenger volume.

[The sharp increase in the number of people taking the LRT and MRT came shortly after government raised fares for jeepneys, buses and taxis. The subsidized fares for commuter trains have been frozen, making the LRT and MRT system the cheapest (and fastest) mode of mass transport in Metro Manila.]

NLEx posted a 3-percent and 8-percent reduction in January and June, respectively. Class 1 traffic declined by 1 percent or less in the other months.

SLEx said its traffic for Class 1 vehicles declined by around 2 percent from January to April and by about 2.5 percent in May and June.

Recently, world oil prices spiraled to their highest level, breaching the $100-a-barrel psychological barrier and coming close to $150 a barrel just last July, prompting consumers to take belt tightening measures to a new level as well.

Because of this, fuel demand drastically dropped 11 percent from the highest so far this year of 9.19 million barrels in April to only 8.16 million barrels in June, according to data from the Department of Energy.

"We don't have the July figures yet, but I'm sure that it's even lower than the June demand. I expect it will be much lower," says Zenaida Monsada, DOE oil industry management bureau director.

The decline in demand has been steady. In January, when prices were also high, consumption was placed at 8.33 million barrels. This picked up to 8.66 million barrels in February, 8.71 million barrels in March and 9.19 million barrels in April.

Demand then dropped to 9.13 million barrels in May before falling to 8.16 million barrels in June.

Price cuts

Depending on how prices would behave in the remaining months of the year, Monsada says this year's fuel consumption can end up lower than the 104.76 million barrels registered in 2007.

But things are looking up.

In recent weeks, local oil firms had been implementing fuel price cuts as prices in the world market have started to soften, driven mainly by slower demand.

"Oil prices continued to slide, after hitting record highs of over $140 a barrel in July, on mounting concern that slower economic growth in the US would translate into lower global energy demand," the DOE's oil monitoring report for the third week of August said.

Despite their claimed under-recoveries, which were highest in May and June, particularly for diesel, oil firms in the country had no choice but to bring prices down. After all, fuel demand had fallen steadily, and was expected to fall even more if prices stayed high.

For some oil firms, the high-price environment created an opportunity to expand their market, even amid shrinking fuel demand.

While the past months had been difficult for the industry, these also opened new doors for the company, says Glenn Yu, president of independent oil firm Seaoil Philippines Inc.

"Volumes for the entire industry have gone down because of high prices, but I can say that we're a beneficiary of high prices. (Seaoil's) overall volume has so far increased 40 percent. I guess consumers are looking for alternatives," he says.

Seaoil launched in June and July a prepaid gas card that locked its gasoline prices at P53.50 a liter for the first phase and P59 a liter for the second phase. These provided consumers with a hedging tool against future price spikes.

What is clear is that-as far as traveling to work is concerned-some people mix driving with commuting while others have left their cars at home altogether.

Driving and taking train

While high gas prices have made some car owners switch to public transport, available data also show that more commuters are now combining driving with bus, jeepney and train use-that is, drive part of the way or ride with someone who uses a car, and commute the rest of the way.

"You are able to save a certain amount, P5,500 to P6,000 a month, [when commuting by rail] instead of driving the car to the business district of Makati," Jularbal says. "The savings I make is plowed back to enjoy a certain lifestyle by our family."

It is a sacrifice, but it is a necessary one in order to preserve the other comforts his family enjoys, he says.

"The point is you don't have to sacrifice your whole lifestyle," he says. "We plan our car trips more carefully these days. No one is exempt from the high cost of living. No one can deny feeling the pinch." With Daxim L. Lucas