DAVAO CITY, Philippines – The Davao City Overland Transport Terminal (DCOTT) has appealed to the riding public to avoid traveling on the rush hour to be saved from the high influx of passengers.
“We call to the passengers to avoid 11th-hour travel because it will be them who will also suffer the rush and the very high influx of passengers during peak hours,” DCOTT manager Aisa Usop said.
In time for the holiday for the midterm elections today, commuters on the way to their localities to cast votes have flocked the DCOTT since Friday.
“The influx of the passengers peaked Saturday night. We even recorded more passengers than the Holy Week season,” Usop said.
The bus trips reached 1,500, way higher than the normal bus trips of 650 to 750 buses daily.
“We have estimated 75,000 passengers on the peak hours on Saturday,” she said.
Usop admitted they were caught off guard with the number of passengers, hence, some were really delayed.
“We did not expect that the number passengers could reach such because, in the previous elections, it was not like that. Aside from that, since last week, passengers started to arrive here so I did not really expect the numbers to reach this way,” she said.
” There were passengers who were able to board the bus at 1 a.m. They were really delayed. They had to wait for hours inside the terminal,” Usop said.
To augment the number of buses available, Usop said they requested additional buses from the North-bound bus company which is the lone bus company plying the said route.
“The most number of passengers is the north-bound. We requested for additional buses from their main office in Cagayan de Oro,” Usop said.
To further ease the high influx of passengers, Usop said they did not follow their interval schedule.
“We no longer follow our interval of 15-20-30 minutes. Once a bus arrives, it gets full with passengers immediately so we send it off,” she said.
On Tuesday afternoon, passengers are expected to flock again in the terminal to go back to work and DCOTT, according to Usop gets ready for the scenario.
“We coordinated with the operation manager of every bus company and I already advised them to be ready for the upcoming days as we expect the passengers’ number to go up again,” she said.
On security concerns, Usop said they have implemented the measures well.
“We have Task Force Davao (TFD) commander Colonel Consolito Yecla personally monitoring and observing the terminal,” she said.(davaotoday.com)
