[In This Economy] Odd-even scheme’s comeback: How it might backfire

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Yes, EDSA is up for a much-needed rehab. But we have to learn lessons from the past, and learn from the ill effects of past policies aimed at rationing roads.

With the recent Cabinet shakeup, there were concerns that Transportation Secretary Vince Dizon might get the chop.

It’s a remote possibility, since Dizon was appointed very recently. But it would be a pity nonetheless. Notwithstanding his past roles in government during the Duterte administration, Dizon is actually doing a fairly good job now. On May 26, he joined transportation advocates to walk some five kilometers along EDSA, so that he could see for himself how bad the commuting experience is.

Previously, it was harder to get the transportation secretary to get down and dirty in Metro Manila’s traffic. Dizon said afterward, “It took about an hour, and I realized just how dangerous it is. Sometimes there are parts where the sidewalk is paved, wide, but there are many parts where the sidewalk is very narrow, and there are parts without any sidewalk at all.”

Commuting along EDSA is about to get even more hellish because of its major rehabilitation starting in June 2025, lasting all the way to 2027. According to a Rappler report, the rehab will involve fixing EDSA’s lanes “lane by lane, one segment at a time.”

Anticipating the even more dreadful traffic ahead, authorities are planning to lay down a slew of solutions, involving 100 more buses, more MRT-3 trains, the continuation of the bus carousel lane, and a window hour for provincial buses and trucks.

Most controversially, the Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA) will be implementing an “odd-even number coding scheme.” Plates ending in odd numbers will be barred on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, while those ending in even numbers will be barred on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays.

For the younger readers out there, this odd-even scheme is a throwback to a similar policy that dates back to the mid-1990s (allegedly what some Gen Zs are now calling “the late 1900s”).

Before, it also used to be called a “color-coding” scheme — not because cars of certain colors were banned on certain days, but because a colored sticker was attached to license plates based on the ending number (for instance, plates ending in 1 and 2 had yellow stickers; 3 and 4 blue stickers; and so on).

Even then, roads were being rationed. But note that the total road length in Metro Manila has significantly increased in the past decades. In the early 1990s, we only had a little over 3,000 kilometers of total roads in Metro Manila. Fast-forward to 2021, national and local roads combined are nearly 5,000 kilometers.

In 2025, why are we still rationing roads as if it’s the 1990s?

The reason is that the metro is denser than ever and more car-centric than ever, with an explosion of both population and private vehicles. The real culprit, though, would be cars. The roads haven’t caught up with the increase in car ownership.

Just last year, in 2024, new vehicle sales nationwide numbered nearly half a million, a record high. Although good news for the auto industry, this is a very bad development for Filipino society as a whole. Leaning into a car-centric society is already making life miserable for all of us, including car owners themselves, who have to grapple with ever longer times stuck in traffic. Within Quezon City, one friend said that moving from one place to another by car could take over an hour. That’s crazy.

Yes, EDSA is up for a much-needed rehab. But we have to learn lessons from the past, and learn from the ill effects of past policies aimed at rationing roads.

Past vehicle reduction schemes, for example, only induced people to buy second cars so they can still use the roads on all days of the week. I wonder: how many households will now buy cars to circumvent the impending odd-even scheme along EDSA?

Maybe it’s an opportune time as well for the government to try out certain policies that are tried and tested elsewhere, including congestion pricing, where people are charged for using main roads during peak or rush hours.

Interestingly, Baguio City is opening up to the possibility of congestion pricing, especially in its uber-busy Session Road. Once implemented through a public-private partnership, cars passing through Session Road might be charged a congestion fee of P250 each. This case study promises to ease traffic in the increasingly congested Baguio City (I just came from there last week for a conference, and often I chose to talk rather than get stuck in traffic riding a taxi).

Scaling up congestion pricing in Metro Manila will obviously be a lot more difficult, and will potentially meet a lot of backlash, especially from the middle class that likes its cars. But we have to admit it: it’s too cheap to own cars in the Philippines, and car owners don’t remotely internalize the costs they impose on the vast majority of the commuting public who don’t own cars.

Electric vehicles will be exempted from the odd-even scheme. Fine, but electric cars are still cars, and if the well-to-do decide to buy new electric vehicles, then that may again offset the original goal of limiting car use along EDSA.

It’s encouraging to see a relatively open-minded Secretary Dizon at the helm of the Department of Transportation. Already, he has committed to defending funding for active transportation. Here’s hoping that he can be an advocate of long-run solutions for  our traffic woes, starting with congestion pricing and an acceleration of rail infrastructure projects. – Rappler.com

JC Punongbayan, PhD is an assistant professor at the UP School of Economics and the author of False Nostalgia: The Marcos “Golden Age” Myths and How to Debunk Them. In 2024, he received The Outstanding Young Men (TOYM) Award for economics. Follow him on Instagram (@jcpunongbayan) and Usapang Econ Podcast.