WITH typhoons, flooding and other weather disruptions repeatedly paralyzing roads and public transport, stakeholders are calling for a more resilient transportation system that can maintain mobility and support business continuity during crises.
MWM Terminals Inc. Chief Operating Officer Mohit Malhi said reliable mobility is essential to keeping businesses operational, as disruptions can prevent workers from reaching their workplaces and customers from accessing establishments.
‘If workers cannot reach their workplace, the company cannot function. If their workers are unable to reach the office, and of course, retail without customers cannot flourish,’ Malhi spoke at the PITX Media Forum: Mobility as Resilience: Keeping People, Business, and Cities Moving last Friday.
He said the interconnected nature of businesses, transport operators, terminals and workplaces means that a disruption in one part of the mobility chain can have broader economic effects.
‘Mobility is like the invisible infrastructure behind every successful business or workplace,’ Malhi added.
Global Robot Coffee Managing Director CJ Jesena, meanwhile, said retailers also feel the impact through lost sales when mobility comes to a halt.
‘When life stops, you don’t have markets to sell to,’ Jesena said, noting that retailers rely on daily sales targets that contribute to their monthly and annual figures. Even a short disruption, he added, can create losses that are difficult to recover.
Retail workers also bear the cost, particularly those under a ‘no work, no pay’ arrangement. Jesena said missing one or two workdays can strain employees who rely on their daily earnings to cover their monthly expenses.
Mobility must go on
‘Just because there’s a disaster, sometimes not even adapted, life should not grind people,’ MWM Terminals Inc. President Atty. Jaime Raphael Feliciano said.
Weather-related incidents, he said, should not automatically bring mobility to a standstill, particularly in areas that remain accessible.
He cited a recent case in southern Metro Manila where classes were suspended despite relatively manageable conditions in the area, partly due to concerns that some parents commuting from other parts of the capital region could have difficulty getting home if conditions worsened.
For Feliciano, however, a problem in one area should not necessarily stop mobility elsewhere. Alternative transport modes and routes could allow people to continue their daily activities despite localized weather conditions.
He said typhoons, flooding and other weather events are recurring challenges rather than isolated incidents, making it necessary for communities and the transport sector to develop ways to keep people moving despite such conditions.
Transport as lifeline
Pasig City Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office chief Bryant Wong also underscored the role of mobility in disaster response, describing transportation as a ‘lifeline for communities during emergencies.’
He said reliable transport is needed to evacuate residents, allow responders to reach affected areas and deliver food, supplies and other assistance to communities in need.
Wong said stronger coordination with the business sector is also needed to support local governments and communities during emergencies, particularly in ensuring that transport and other essential services remain available when disasters strike.
BPO resilience has limits
For the business-process outsourcing (BPO) sector, transport remains critical despite investments in technology and other measures to keep operations running, S.P. Madrid Chief Executive Officer Ian Madrid said.
‘The lifeblood of running a BPO company is really having people sitting down and being productive,’ Madrid said, noting that workers still need to report to the office despite efforts to use technology and work-from-home arrangements as alternatives.
He said this is particularly challenging for BPO firms that serve banks and other financial institutions, where strict data-privacy requirements can limit the ability of employees to work remotely.
Madrid said companies cannot simply allow employees to take equipment and sensitive information home, as financial-sector operations require safeguards around client data.
For firms that serve banks, which account for about 80 percent of S.P. Madrid’s clients, having employees physically present, remains critical to service delivery, he said.
Reducing mobility friction
Beyond keeping transport services available, Malhi said the efficiency of a passenger’s journey also matters, as every transfer between a person’s home, workplace and other destinations adds time and another potential point of failure.
These vulnerabilities become more pronounced during disasters, when transport services may be limited or routes become inaccessible, he added.
Transport hubs such as PITX, Malhi said, can help reduce these vulnerabilities by providing passengers with multiple transport options and connections.
‘We are not only having a redundant kind of network. You can go from point A to point B not just by one mode of transport. There are multiple options,’ Malhi said.
PITX also studies the transport network around Metro Manila to reduce the number of transfers required for passengers. Its goal, Malhi said, is to allow passengers to travel from PITX to destinations across the metropolis with one, or at most two, transfers.
Feliciano said the company also seeks to improve reliability within the terminal by monitoring routes and coordinating with transport operators and regulators.
He said PITX does not directly control the public transport vehicles that operate at the facility, but passengers often associate service problems with the terminal.
To address service gaps, PITX gathers data on routes, sets internal standards and monitors passenger waiting times. Feliciano said the terminal aims for passengers to wait no more than 20 minutes on a particular route under normal conditions.
When operators fail to meet these standards, Feliciano said, PITX coordinates with them to improve service and may seek additional units from regulators when a route lacks sufficient capacity.
Marie Anne Santerva, administrative manager of Ceres Transport, one of the bus operators at PITX, said delays can also result from limited bus availability and slow turnaround times.
She said traffic is one of the main factors affecting bus turnaround and, consequently, passenger waiting times.
Santerva said transport operators continue to work to meet passenger demand, particularly by providing reliable and convenient options for commuters.
PITX, the country’s first landport, is operated by MWM Terminals Inc., a subsidiary of Megawide Construction Corp., under a 35-year build-transfer-operate contract. The terminal reportedly served about 127 million passengers from 2019 to 2023, with daily passenger traffic reaching around 180,000. It is expected to serve about 60 million passengers this year.
In 2024, PITX added six routes serving destinations including Tuguegarao City, San Carlos City and Dagupan City in Pangasinan, San Pedro and Southwoods in Laguna, and Guimaras in Western Visayas, bringing its network to about 100 routes.
Feliciano acknowledged, however, that PITX has limits in managing transport services under its current role. He said the terminal may eventually seek transport franchises that would allow it to directly operate certain services.