Pilot test starts for e-tagging scheme vs ‘colorum’ vehicles

The Metropolitan Manila Development Authority, the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board, and various transport groups on Thursday began pilot-testing the electronic tagging scheme on public utility vehicles.

E-tagging has been touted by proponents as a more effective, high-tech way of identifying and intercepting PUVs that ply the streets unlicensed or outside their registered routes.

The scheme involves the issuance of radio frequency identification device, or RFID, stickers on PUVs. When scanned using a reader, a data chip in the sticker would register the vehicle’s franchise details on the reading device, such as its officially listed plate or registration number, route and operator.

The vehicle’s markings must match the details appearing on the device. “If the vehicle is colorum, the route wouldn’t match. If the route [on the reader] says “Washington,” but the jeepney is in Cubao, then it will be apprehended as colorum,” MMDA Chairman Francis Tolentino explained.

Zona Tamayo of the LTFRB legal division added that if the stickers were faked or illegally procured by unregistered or illegal PUVs, either there would be a mismatch in the details or no information would register on the readers at all.

PUV operators are being asked to pay P480 for each RFID sticker, to be procured from a technology supplier. The LTFRB will provide the data for the RFID technology while the MMDA will be tasked to implement the scheme.

Mila Silvestre, director of MMDA organized bus route office, said the traffic enforcers will be equipped with an initial batch of 60 handheld RFID readers while 26 fixed or mounted readers capable of automatically detecting “out-of-line” PUVs would also be installed around the metropolis.

Silvestre said Thursday’s event, in which a bus and a jeepney were e-tagged at the MMDA headquarters in Makati, was just a “ceremonial launch.”

The scheme is yet to be drawn up in detail, but transport agencies and groups are hoping to make it mandatory starting January next year and give PUVs until April to secure RFIDs. After that, vehicles that are still not e-tagged would be apprehended, Silvestre said.

Vigor Mendoza, legal counsel of transport group 1Utak which has been pushing for the scheme, said, “This a great opportunity for the drivers of the registered PUVs to increase their income.”

He said legitimate drivers could earn an additional P200 per day on certain routes if they no longer have to contend with colorum competitors.

“Soon enough, this would also ease the traffic situation on major roads in the metropolis as colorum vehicles would no longer be able ply their trade,” Mendoza added.