MikeLigalig.com

The World Bank (WB) has approved two grants to the Cebu City Government worth P17.2 million for technical studies, including one that will gather transportation data to support planning for a Bus Rapid Transit (BRT).

Cebu City Planning and Development Coordinator Nigel Paul Villarete said the city will receive 300,000 US dollars or about P12,900,000 in the first grant.

This will cover studies by a WB team that will use cell phones, geographic information system (GIS) and Google-Maps, among others, to collect travel time and road condition data in the city.

These technologies will be deployed and connected to at least 500 taxis and government-owned vehicles, to get a more accurate picture of the congestion on the city’s roads.

These are also intended to mine data on how “to more effectively manage road assets, mitigate traffic congestion and manage transport fleets.”

”This grant from WB will shorten the data collection and database build-up in Cebu, which in the past took a number of years,” said Villarete.

According to Villarete, Cebu’s last major and complete transport database and travel model updates were conducted in 1992 yet.

”As the BRT project moved into infrastructure lending phase, development of a systematic means for collecting data on corridor and surrounding traffic conditions would be very valuable,” said WB in its proposal.

For the second grant, Villarete said the City is set to get 100,000 US dollars or at least P4,300,000 from WB, for emission inventory levels in the city. This will be used in eco-management.

”Many of the climate change projects or initiatives all over the world always start with an emission inventory level. You cannot come up with projects on how to decrease your emission levels or other measures for emission abatement if you don’t know where you are at present,” said Villarete.

Aside from the two grants, Villarete said WB is also offering to the City Government another grant, which is vehicle scrapping project.

The project, adopted in Cairo, Egypt, seeks to scrap old vehicles since these have high emission levels that harm the environment.

Villarete said the WB has foreseen opposition from operators so it plans to provide incentives and access to funds to allow the operators to buy new vehicles that are more environment-friendly.

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