Travel Demand Analysis: Requirements for Transit Modeling for Metropolitan Manila

Abstract

Traffic congestion has been an everyday phenomenon in Metro Manila. With road-based and rail-based transport facilities operating at overcapacity, it can be construed that transport planning employed for the capital region of the Philippines has been inadequate. In-depth scrutiny of the transport planning carried out in the metro, however, would reveal that there had been plenty of transport plans completed since the late 1960s—with most of these plans’ recommendations unimplemented. It is in this context that this research note seeks to bring to light these past transport plans. Using available state-of-the-art transport modeling software, the project’s proponents aimed to overlay these railway plans on existing traffic and land use conditions in Metro Manila, and, in this research note, presented the requirements to simulate the counterfactual scenarios in relation to past transport plans. The model outcomes of the simulation would fill in the what-if scenarios being sought as the key to understanding what could have been the state of traffic in Metro Manila if past rail transport plans had been implemented.