Transportation Problems: Longer Commuting

One of the most prevalent problems in the transportation systems found in the Philippines is commuting.
Google Dictionary defines commuting as to travel some distance between one's home and place of work on a regular
basis. According to a news article published by the Philippine Daily Inquirer last 2014, about half of Filipino
households do not own a car, which is among the lowest globally. Hence, travelling is usually done through the use
of public transportation vehicles such as Jeeps, Busses, Rail Transits, etc. One of the most important factors stated
by an article found in safeworkers.co.uk as to why people commute is residential affordability, as housing located
further away from business areas is more affordable. Therefore, commuters are trading time for housing
affordability.

Longer Commuting is a major transportation problem that the Philippines is facing today because it brings
many undesirable effects to the community and many individuals. Durham (2018) mentioned in his article entitled
“Effects of Long Commutes to work” that longer hours of commuting is associated with different physical health
problems which includes high blood pressure, and higher risk of heart attack. An article published in lifehacker.com
stated that every year, traffic causes people to lose 2183 minutes of sleep and in the US, 96,000 heart attacks are
attributed to traffic.

A Swedish study in 2008 shows that people with lengthy commute are prone to different mental health
issues such as increased stress levels, sleep worse, and decreased social interactions. Another study of more than
34,000 British employees across all UK industries conducted by VitalityHealth with the University of Cambridge,
RAND Europe and Mercer also found that it is 33% more likely to suffer from depression when commuting longer.

Longer commuting also lowers the productivity of individuals. In Economics, there is a term called
Opportunity Cost, which is the cost of any activity measured in terms of the value of the next best alternative
forgone (that is not chosen). In other words, the time spent on a lengthy commutes time that is being taken away
from other more desirable events, such as spending time with family, sleeping, exercising or socializing. With most
people, these costs are significant as the effects of a long commute can bleed into many other aspects of an
individual’s personal life.

The major cause of long times of commute can be directly linked to traffic congestion. We can think of it as
a funnel, just the right amount of cars can go through fast enough, and adding extra cars will cause the whole thing
to back up. So to solve the longer hours of commute, we must first solve the problem of traffic congestion. And to
solve traffic congestion we must find a way to lessen the number of vehicles travelling in the road during rush hours.
For me, the least expensive way to do that is for the government to encourage the use of carpooling, which combines
people having a similar origin, destination and commute time into one vehicle trip, thus slightly reducing the number
of vehicles in the road.

For me, the problem in the Philippines is that businesses are largely concentrated on highly urban areas
such as Manila City which limits the choices for work in other nearby cities. This results in people from nearby
cities (such as Parañaque and Cavite City) to commute to Manila thus intensifying the vehicular volume in the city
resulting in traffic congestion which leads to longer hours of commute. To solve this, the government should find
ways for the big businesses in the country to invest in these places, giving the people living there an option to work
closer to their home, reducing the number of commutes.

For me, the best way to solve this problem of longer commutes and traffic congestion is for the Philippines
to promote the use of bicycles and build bicycle lanes just like in the city of Copenhagen in Denmark, which has
more bikes than cars. Since bicycles takes little space, it immediately solves the problem of parking difficulties.
Bicycle lanes can enable people to refrain from using cars when travelling short distances, thus reducing the volume
of cars in the road since only people who are from far places will use cars and other modes of transportation, leading
to smoother flow in traffic and decreased commute times. Researchers at the University of Sydney School of Public
Health found out that cycling has many health benefits and is environmentally friendly since cycling has no carbon
emissions. All in all, the addition of bicycle lanes is the best solution that I thought of in reducing the commute times
but I think that it is very unlikely to happen in the Philippines due to it being expensive. But I think that it is a very
good investment to make in order to improve the transportation system in our country.

References:

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/hec.1389

http://www.safeworkers.co.uk/effectsoflongcommutestowork.html

https://www.monster.ca/career-advice/article/never-overlook-a-long-commute-ca

http://business.inquirer.net/168991/nielsen-sees-car-buying-boom-in-the-philippines

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-drive/what-bicycle-friendly-copenhagen-can-teach-us-about-
commuting/article34233541/