Survey: 30% Filipinos Unhappy About Their Daily Commute

MANILA: About 30 percent Filipinos consider their commute to be the worst part of their day, according to a Ford Motor Company survey.

Only 4 percent of the Filipino respondents said they liked their commute, while 23 percent said it’s “not bad,” CNN Philippines quoted the survey. The remaining 43 percent believed their commute is inconvenient.

The car company conducted the survey to know how Asia Pacific countries feel about the state of their commute. Out of 12,619 people surveyed, 1,052 came from the Philippines.

Nearly half of them (42 percent) reportedly said their commute was worse than a year ago. Traffic congestion and crowded public transportation were the top reasons cited for the decline in quality.

Higher expenses and elusive parking spots were other reasons cited.

A majority (60 percent) of the Filipino respondents said their commutes are getting more expensive, mainly because of higher fares, higher fuel costs, and choosing taxis and ride-hailing services over cheaper options, said the news portal.

“As the Philippine economy continues to thrive and the people remain to be one of the world’s most confident consumers, challenges like these are bound to happen,” Joseph Ayllon, Ford Philippines’ assistant vice president for communications, reportedly said.

But 22 percent of the respondents were quoted as saying that their commute had improved over the last year, saying public transportation was more comfortable, more convenient, and less crowded.

The remaining 37 percent reportedly said the quality of their commute had neither improved nor declined.

It’s not surprising to hear that Filipinos are some of the most dissatisfied commuters in the world. Last year, surveys named Manila as the city with the longest commute and one with the worst traffic on earth, reported CNN Philippines.

The government has reportedly proposed several ways to address commuters’ woes, such as easing traffic congestion in EDSA and improving rail transit.

Of people from 12 countries surveyed, Ford was quoted as saying that the Vietnamese were the “most likely” to say their commute had improved, followed by Indians and Indonesians.

(Source: FilipinoTimes.ae)