ZAMBOANGA CITY’s Local Public Transport Route Plan (LPTRP) has been approved by the national regulatory board and will now be included in the ongoing study for a comprehensive transport and traffic management masterplan. Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) Chairman Martin B. Delgra III awarded on Monday the notice of compliance to the city’s LPTRP team, which was formed in 2018. “With the granted notice of compliance, the city government is to enact an ordinance adopting the said LPTRP indicating the routes, authorized modes and number of authorized units,” the LTFRB notice states. Local government units are mandated to draft an LPTRP under a 2017 directive from the Department of Transportation and the Department of Interior and Local Government. “Zamboanga City is one of the growing urban centers in Mindanao, and like other highly urbanized areas in the country, it is experiencing a significant increase in population and consequently traffic congestion due to the increase in the volume of road traffic users and limited road capacity,” Mayor Maria Isabelle Climaco-Salazar said in a social media post during the LPTRP team’s creation. The route plan, drafted with support from the Western Mindanao State University’s College of Engineering-Extension Services, will be made part of the Comprehensive Transport and Traffic Management Plan (2019–2033) that is being prepared by the University of the Philippines-National Center for Transportation Studies (UP-NCTS). The UP-NCTS, commissioned by the city government, led a transport summit in January in preparation for the plan. — Mindanao Bureau

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