FOREIGN LITERATURE

LEVEL OF SERVICE
Level of service measures the traffic stream, travel time, freedom to maneuver, traffic interruptions and
comfort and convenience on a road. This type of study can is used to evaluate the state of a road location. It
determines condition and classifies it from Level A to Level F, Level A being the best operating and Level F
as worst. Data gathered from this method of study can also be used to change/improve the signal timing at
a given intersection. The inputs needed are phasing sequence, signal timing, and geometric details like lane
widths and number of lanes. When the level of service is determined based on the LOS criteria the
researchers can now formulate solutions to ease the vehicle delay. (National Research Council, 2000).

Local Studies
Traffic Congestion
Economic loss due to traffic is one of the huge problems in the Philippines. Traffic delay causes companies
to lose a certain amount of money on fuel and lost resources. Fuel bills increases as the time you spend on
the road increases. Even workers who arrive late because of traffic gets a reduction in their salaries. The
causes of Traffic Congestion are high volume of cars traveling during rush hours, insufficient road capacity
to handle high volume traffic, public transports loading and unloading on illegal zones. These are only a few
factors that affect traffic. The authorities came up with the implementation of color-coding schemes and
truck bans but there is still a huge number of vehicles that travel daily (Chua, 2015).
Unified Vehicular Volume Reduction Program (UVVRP) or Number Coding is used widely on major roads to
lessen the traffic. Plate numbers were equally distributed to 10 digits (1 to 0). Restriction of 2 digits at the
end of the plate number would reduce 20% of the number of vehicles. The first study about this scheme
was done by JICA’s Metro Manila Urban Transportation Integration Study (1999). The conclusion about
their study was the volume was only reduced by 4.3%. The people changed their travel time avoiding the
time where the coding is implemented. They also changed routes using the minor roads where there is no
restriction because the coding is only applied at major roads. Therefore the impact of this scheme is
already not effective as planned (Regidor, 2013).
References
Chua, G. S. (2015, March 12). Economic effects of traffic in Metro Manila. Retrieved from Business Mirror:
https://businessmirror.com.ph/2015/03/12/economic-effects-of-traffic-in-metro-manila/
National Research Council. (2000). Highway Capacity Manual. United States of America: National
Academy of Sciences.
Regidor, J. R. (2013). TRAFFIC CONGESTION IN METRO MANILA: IS THE UVVRPSTILL EFFECTIVE?
PHILIPPINE ENGINEERING JOURNAL, 66-75.