At 6:40 on a Tuesday the line for the Cubao to Divisoria route is already past the corner. Half the jeepneys that pull in are the new kind: taller, air-conditioned, with a door at the side and a card reader by the driver.
Riders notice the cool air first. “You don’t arrive sweaty,” says Mylene, a nurse who rides the route twice a day. They notice the waiting next. The new units are fewer, and on some routes the gap between trips has stretched from a few minutes to twenty.
Cards, coins and patience
The card readers are the most talked-about change. When they work, boarding is quick. When they don’t, the driver waves passengers on and collects coins anyway, which makes the whole system feel optional.
“I like the new ones. I just wish there were more of them before seven.”
Drivers have their own list. The units are easier on the back and the cooperatives pay a fixed salary instead of the old boundary system, but the loans for the vehicles are long and the routes have been redrawn more than once.
What the routes look like now
Over five days we rode five routes: Cubao to Divisoria, Quiapo to Kalentong, Pasay to Baclaran, Monumento to Sangandaan and a short feeder route in Marikina. On the two busiest, the new units ran close to a fixed timetable; on the quieter ones, riders still waited for a full load before the driver set off.
Older riders mention the step: the new units sit higher, and the side door is a stretch for anyone carrying shopping. Younger riders mention the screens showing the next stop, which work on some units and stay blank on others.
The cooperatives running the new units say ridership is steady and complaints are mostly about frequency, which they hope to fix as more vehicles arrive. Riders, for their part, say they will judge the system in the rainy season, when every commute in the city gets harder.
What riders want is simple: a jeepney when they need one, at a fare they can predict. The new design gets the comfort right. The schedule is the next test.
