Too Much Competition Bad for Transportation

Public transportation in the Philippines is a plethora of modes of transportation.  From the few ancient railways and the newer light rail transits serving the metro, to the road hugging  buses and the (in)famous jeepneys our Department of Tourism seems to be proud of, to the more expensive taxis and fx, to the tricycles, pedicabs, and kalesa's (horse-pulled carriages) plying the old towns, it might not be too rare to see these present in some roads all at the same time.

Such variety arguably puts strain to our humble and mostly ill-planned roads.  But such could have been improved upon if not for the little regulated, privatized competition present in all but the decidedly singular trains on their singular tracks.

Because of competition, we see jeepneys and buses racing against each other, to get to the next pool of would-be passengers.  To make matters worse, these passengers can be just about anywhere.  We see jeepneys counter flowing just so they can be at the head of the traffic, to be the first in line waiting for the green light, so that they can have the first choice of passengers.  Jeepneys and buses would accelerate quickly only to decelerate just as fast, causing flaring tempers, wasted gas, more pollution, and slow average traffic for the next few hundred meters back.  Buses come out of their lanes to overtake, but only to go back after exactly one bus, again to get passengers, while successfully blocking two or three lanes in the process, causing tens or hundreds of vehicles to crawl on the highway.

This is traffic, made in the Philippines.  Is there hope?  Not any time soon.  I still can't believe the gall of one jeepney driver a few years back who said that heavy traffic is caused by private cars.  That sure came out of nowhere.