Uber offers tech platform to guide PH infra programs

RIDE- HAILING company Uber is offering its technology to the Philippine government for use in optimizing infrastructure plans.

Laurence Cua, Uber Philippines general manager, said its Movement initiative, which aggregates data from daily trips, could help the government to plan routes.

“Movement uses the power of big data to help government officials and planners really understand the impact to travel times of the infrastructure projects and programs they roll out,” Cua said in a statement on Monday.

The data will particularly be useful for projects such as a proposed bridge between Binondo and Intramuros in Manila and the Skway Stage 3 from Makati to Quezon City.

The government, Cua added, should also realize the potential of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport Expressway ( NAIA- X) in facilitating travel to Bonifacio Global City (BGC).

He said data recorded “from thousands of trips months before and after NAIA-X was opened last June,” showed “shortened average travel times in and around areas it serves, even for those who didn’t take the new elevated expressway.”

“So if the NAIA-X BGC extension is built, travel on the Skyway system from the moment a vehicle enters NAIA-X in Entertainment City or NAIA, for instance, it should be in BGC in around 20 minutes, down by half from the current average of 40 minutes,” Cua said.

“[I]f more cars take the Skyway system, there would be fewer cars at the road level, easing traffic all around which was actually the original concept for the Skyway and at-grade combination,” he added.

Uber earlier this year announced the Movement initiative and said it was already working with officials in Manila, Melbourne and Washington.