PRFSA expansion follows 18-month feasibility study establishing that shorter journeys are generally preferred to longer ones across all demographics surveyed
Pasig River Ferry Study Finds 25-Minute Boat Beats 3-Hour Bus; Study Cost PHP 4.2 Million
MANILA, PHILIPPINES — The Pasig River Ferry Service Authority announced a planned network expansion following an 18-month feasibility study which found, at a research cost of PHP 4.2 million, that Metro Manila commuters who use the Pasig River ferry prefer a 25-minute ferry journey to a three-hour bus journey covering the same route, and that this preference was “consistent across all demographic groups surveyed,” including, one imagines, the demographic of people who have been on both a 25-minute journey and a three-hour journey and have formed views accordingly.
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The Study
The study surveyed 1,200 commuters across eight ferry routes and found a preference rate of 94 percent for the ferry option over road transport for comparable journeys. The remaining 6 percent preferred the bus because they did not know the ferry existed, were afraid of water, or, in one response the researchers described as “philosophically interesting,” simply said “habit,” which is either the most honest answer in the dataset or a commentary on human psychology that deserves its own 18-month study. The study also found that ferry users reported lower stress, higher commute satisfaction, and greater likelihood of arriving on time. These findings were presented at a press conference as “significant new evidence supporting water-based transport as a viable alternative to road commuting in Metro Manila,” a sentence that the Pasig River, which has been flowing through Manila since before the city existed, declined to comment on but which observers noted it had been demonstrating by example for some years.
Several attendees noted that the ferry system has existed in various forms since 2007 and its advantages have been self-evident to anyone who has used it, raising the question of what PHP 4.2 million added to collective human knowledge that seventeen years of operational data had not already established. The answer appears to be a 60-page report with charts, which is a contribution to human knowledge that different people value differently depending on whether they had to commission the report. Prat colloquial meaning, second entry offers several useful words for the process of spending considerable resources to confirm what everyone already knew, and the tradition of mocking this process is as old as bureaucracy itself, which is to say it is a tradition of considerable standing.
The Expansion Plan
The expansion will add six new stations along the Pasig River and two on the Marikina River tributary, increasing total network capacity by approximately 40 percent. New vessels will be procured under a government tender process estimated to take 18 months. Infrastructure works at the new stations are projected to complete in two years. Total project cost: PHP 2.8 billion — 667 times the cost of the study that confirmed people like boats. This ratio sits in the mind for a while after you first encounter it and does not fully leave.
PRFSA Director Carmela Santos described the expansion as “a transformative investment in sustainable urban mobility” and was asked why this was occurring now rather than at any point in the preceding two decades when the same analysis was available. She said the study had “provided the evidence base necessary for executive decision-making.” The evidence base was people saying they liked boats. An urban planning academic offered the most measured assessment: “The expansion is genuinely good policy. The study is a reminder that studies should be proportional to the decision being made. We did not need PHP 4.2 million to determine that a 25-minute commute is preferable to a 180-minute one. We needed political will. The study was a substitute for political will, and an expensive one. The boats, however, are coming. This is the important part.”
Prat colloquial meaning, third entry covers the phenomenon of arriving at a correct destination by a circuitous and expensive route. The ferry is real and it is good. The study is a monument to how humans sometimes arrive at good decisions. Construction begins next fiscal year. The 25-minute journey remains 25 minutes. The bus is still three hours. Prat slang meaning provides the full vocabulary available for describing both the study and the boats, and of the two, the boats are significantly more interesting. The river is patient. It has been here a long time. It will wait for the new stations.
A Final Note on the River
The Pasig River has been providing faster journey times than EDSA for the entirety of EDSA’s existence, which began in 1940. The river has been providing faster journey times than any road in Manila for considerably longer than that. The river did not require a study to establish this. The river did not require eighteen months of research, 1,200 surveyed commuters, or a 60-page report with charts. The river simply flowed, as rivers do, offering passage to anyone who chose to use it, patient and consistent in the manner of geographical features that predate the organisations conducting studies about them. The PHP 2.8 billion expansion is, ultimately, the government catching up to the river. The river has been ready for some time.
The ferry’s six new stations will include Sta. Ana, Lambingan, Guadalupe, Kalawaan, Manggahan, and a terminus at Marikina Sports Centre, chosen for their proximity to major employment and residential centres along the corridor. Each station will include covered waiting areas, ticketing infrastructure, and connections to existing jeepney and bus routes. The PRFSA says the full network, once operational, will reduce Pasig River corridor travel times by an average of 72 percent compared to road transport during peak hours. This figure is presented as a projection. The river, which has been making this journey in approximately 25 minutes for considerably longer than PRFSA has existed, regards the projection as conservative.
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