A Ceres bus plies the city’s street as the main mode of transport for commuters during the time of the pandemic.| Contributed photo
CEBU CITY, Philippines — Cebu City Mayor Edgardo Labella said Vacallar Transport, the operator of the Ceres Bus Liner has promised to improve their operations following the multiple road incidents involving their buses in the city.
Labella said in a press conference on Friday, November 6, 2020, that the bus liner has agreed to conduct a seminar for all their drivers who were not from Cebu City.
“Kasagaran man gud sa ilang mga drivers dili taga Cebu City, mao na wala kasuhito sa atong mga dalan. (Most of their drivers are not from Cebu City so they are not familiar of our streets),” said Labella.
He was also informed that the bus liner conducted a seminar on Friday to address this problem, which he said the city welcomes despite the reported lack of buses today in the streets due to the seminar.
One of the major concerns of the city government with the Ceres buses was their speed, as the Land Transportation Office (LTO) recently said that most of the accidents involving the buses were due to overspeeding.
With this, the city has imposed a strict 40 kilometer-per-hour (kph) speed limit for the buses in major roads and 20 kph for secondary roads. The buses are also prohibited from entering interior roads.
To avoid causing traffic at N. Bacalso Highway, the city requested that instead of taking a u-turn at Barangay Bulacao, the buses must make a u-turn at their Barangay Kinasang-an hub.
“We have received their commitment that they will follow the speed limit or else we will not allow them to enter our city,” said the mayor.
Labella said that his warning still stand that if the bus liner causes any more devastating accidents and refuses to follow the city’s traffic laws, their entire fleet line will be banned.
The city government is also now in talks with Mybus for the latter to provide 20 additional buses to the city’s streets to address the lack of transportation for workers.
Provincial bus liners like Librando have also offered to deploy additional buses to the city.
Should the Ceres buses fail to keep their promise, Labella said the city will not hesitate to remove all their units from its streets. /rcg