The smoke-belching jeepney that has been the backbone of commuter transport for half a century is also said to be one of the biggest contributors to air pollution.
Some 2,000 Filipinos die each year, most of them in Manila, due to the effects of air pollution and more than 9,000 suffer from chronic bronchitis, a 2002 World Bank study found.
But a local company backed by the environmental group Greenpeace thinks it may have a solution to help ease the air pollution problem – electric jeepneys powered by a “bio-digester plant” that generates electricity from household waste.
Robert Puckett, president of Solar Electric Co. Inc., sees the electric jeepney – or “e-jeepneys” – as a way of reducing both pollution levels and household garbage at the same time.
Made in China the e-jeepney costs some P550,000 pesos ($11,956) and can cover 100 kilometers before needing to be recharged, which takes between eight and 10 hours.
With a maximum speed of about 40 kilometers an hour they can carry 14 passengers – about the same number as a regular jeepney – and cost about P150 pesos a day in electricity, says Puckett, compared to around P700 per day for diesel.
In Manila, a city of 12 million people, commuters spend hours packed like sardines inside jeepneys breathing in the toxic air.
The cost to the economy in days lost through sickness ranges from $170 million to $430 million, according to World Bank and Asian Development Bank (ADB) estimates.
An ADB report released in December 2006 said: “The transport sector is the most significant source of pollution in Metropolitan Manila.”
Despite the environmentally friendly approach to the transport problem the electric jeepney still has to prove itself and win over the powerful jeepney drivers.
The e-jeepneys, as they are known, need to be capable of running on the mean streets of the Philippines where overloaded vehicles, potholes, reckless driving and even the occasional flood are all part of any normal day for the standard jeepney.
The jeepney first emerged just after World War II when a battle-ravaged Philippines was short of motorized transport.
Clever entrepreneurs bought up US military surplus jeeps, extended their chasses to allow them to carry more people, put roofs on them and turned them into low-cost commuter mini-buses, serving routes that bus or rail companies ignored.
Orlando Marquez, president of the Jeepney Association of the Philippines, an umbrella group of jeepney operators, says there are about half a million registered jeepneys plying the roads today and about an equal number of illegal jeepneys which operate without government permits.
In recent weeks, three e-jeepneys have been used as shuttles at a Manila university and in the central city of Bacolod but they cannot roam the streets freely until transport officials give their approval.
Greenpeace International energy campaigner Athena Ronquillo says the transport agencies have indicated they may give their approval before the end of September.
When that happens, five e-jeepneys will get a test run in the Makati business district and in Bacolod for two to three months.
Tags: E-Jeep, Environment
