Cebu City TMC Board wary of traffic lights’ contractor’s claims

2020 Digitalized Traffic Light System Project| Photo from TMC Board

CEBU CITY, Philippines — The Cebu City Traffic Management Coordination Committee or TMC Board has expressed apprehension on the claims of the contractor behind the 2020 Digitalized Traffic Light System Project that the system that it was using was “the most advanced traffic system in the world.”

In a statement sent to CDN Digital on Thursday, Feb. 2, 2023, the TMC Board said such a claim and promotion “had raised the public’s expectations” that once these two-phase project would be fully operational, this would have a big positive impact on the traffic situation of the city.

“At this point, let us emphasize that phase one of the project, which covers eighteen (18) intersections along Gen. Maxilom Avenue, Serging Osmeña Boulevard and Colon Street, among others was completed last quarter of 2021. Worthy to note is that since last year there were already reports of malfunctioning traffic lights even at major intersections involving these newly installed traffic lights,” read a portion of the TMC Board statement.

READ: New traffic lights launched in Cebu City

The said statement is also shared at the official Facebook account of the Cebu City Transportation Office.

The TMC Board said that while it respected the contractor’s way of promoting their product, they would want to approach this claim “with much caution and circumspection,” especially that the actual impact of half a billion project, which covered only 45 city intersections, still remained to be seen.

With the project amount, each intersection, has a budget of about P10.6 million.

CDN Digital is withholding the name of the contractor, pending its side of the issue.

The project contract was awarded in September 2020, or before the existence of the TMC Board.

The Board claimed that they were just given a briefing by the contractor last August 2022 when it received numerous questions from the public on the status of the project.

“Whether the much hyped most advanced traffic system in the world that this project is supposed to provide will actually have a major positive impact on the traffic situation in the city remains to be seen. In fact, despite the completion of the Two Hundred thirty-Two Million Pesos (Pp 232,000,000.00) phase one component of this two (2) phase project last quarter of 2021 we can barely see its positive effect on the city’s traffic flow most especially during peak hours,” the TMC Board said in the statement.

“This somehow negates the contractor’s press release that the system will minimize the delay in the delivery of goods for businessmen, and in effect also has so far not helped in the smoother flow of vehicles for commuters as well,” it added.

The Board also said that it would reserve its final comments on the traffic light project once there is already a “more informed” assessment of its impact on the city’s traffic situation.

The new traffic lights project was launched in March 2021 during the time of the late mayor Edgardo Labella.

Among the promised feature of the new traffic light system is its digitization, use of an artificial intelligence, CCTV, with an easier and faster way of customizing the lights from the Cebu City Transportation Office (CCTO) command center.

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