Quote Originally Posted by niky
:lol: Don't get me started on jeepneys. Can you imagine over a hundred jeepneys jockeying for just a few dozen passengers? It's madness! Last time I passed Sucat road going to the airport at night, gridlock yung traffic... why?

There were almost one hundred jeepneys parked over three lanes. The first ten or so jeepneys had maybe five or ten bored passengers sitting there, waiting for them to leave.

The reason jeepney drivers only make a marginal living? Too much competition. Too many jeepneys.
kaya nga eh... you've got your typical ill-educated high school graduate who can't read (HOW do these guys pass the driver's license exams again????) and so can't get a job. so what does he do?

(imitate barney from the simpsons)
"uhh.. i can't get a job... uhh... i know!!! i can drive a jeepney!!!"

so you have too many jeepneys, all of them with stone age sulfur-spewing diesel engines. they make a living, after a fashion, because at rush hour they all can get passengers. which is enough for them to survive. but at off-peak hours... you have the spectacle of the long traffic-causing lines.

the FX line from Taguig to Makati (and vice versa) has a pretty disciplined setup. Everybody queues up in the morning, the FX's (actually a bunch of FX's, a wayward Starex, and a Nissan Urvan the FX barkers call "the train") come in at regular intervals. by 9:30 a.m. there are no more FX's to be had (no more passengers, equals no more vehicles). i don't know where they spend the rest of their day....

ditto for the Makati MRT terminal, by 9:00 p.m. wala nang FX na masakyan (then we mumble and curse and fork over 250 pesos for a taxi ride to Taguig).

this system only works because the FX association on this route probably controls the NUMBER of FX's they allow. I don't know how they enforce it, but it more or less guarantees that each FX driver gets about 3-4 trips in the morning, and 3-4 trips in the evening.