⌛ Tricycle routes?

You are trying to see a system where there is really none. Although the trikes have to be registered there is no established/required routes that the drivers have to follow like western public transportation systems. I come from a city that charges $1.45 per zone (66p), makes you wait at least 1 hour between trips, requires that you wear a shirt and shoes, and unless you live on the main line, never brings you to your street or home. I have come to appreciate that the Duma trikes are actually more efficient people movers, represent entrepenurial spirit, and I will really hate to see them go if certain politicians/critics have their way.

 

Trikes in certain area have routes. Notice the color of the pedicab number, they have some sort of coding, and on top, you would read the destination (i.e. red for Bagacay, another color of Mangnao, Canday-ong... etc.) usually they have terminals in the market area. Bagacay for one can be found in the alley of Building... there are also those trikes, the one with the yellow background on white number that is "ROVING" meaning they don't have any specific "O-D" route. they can practically go anywhere in the city. By the way, there is supposed to be a fare matrix for these trikes, if I'm not mistaken it should Php 7.00 for the first 4/5 kms and 50 centavos for every succeeding km.

 

how did you fare as a former computer system analyst? if you handled total chaotic systems, i am just curious how you failed to see the dumaguete trike system? or shall we use the term unsystem? anything is a system. everything that runs is a system. no matter what world you were in, it would not be that different definition.

computers use just ones and zeroes. dumaguete trike system operate much more than that. maybe that is the reason that got u confused. but i assure you, it is not as complex an odyssey.

welcome to dumaguete.

 

From The Princess Bride:
Vizzini: He didn't fall? Inconceiveable!
Inigo Montoya: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

One of the first tasks of a Systems Analyst is to get the people for whom the new computer software is being built is to stop thinking about their existing software as THE SYSTEM. A system is a set of behaviors. Those behaviors may include ones that are approved, some unapproved, some forbidden, some accidental, some expected, some so mundane or obvious that nobody ever thinks of them, some so rare that they also are never thought of.

Trike drivers in Dumaguete may not function as the LTFRB wants them to and have a different set of behaviors for locals and foreginers, but there is some predictability so there is a system.

This is what often happens from a foreigner's perspective of 14 days here:

* The number of passengers is based on the room available.

* A P 7 fare will cover a short ride. Add a peso for each km. I don't ask what it will cost for rides of less than about 5 km that begin and end in the densely populated areas. "Lugar lang" tells him to stop, I give the driver P 10 and get out. None have asked for more.

* Drivers want to negotate (or specify) a price for a ride out to the less populated areas.

* If one asks three different people, locals or foreigners, how tricycles work one will get three different answers.

I don't call that Total Chaos. I don't even describe what happens at intersections as Total Chaos, but that's another thread.

The following is still being figured out.

Some trikes have brgy names on them.

The big registration numbers are different colors. On my walk this morning all but two of the numbers were white on yellow. The colors probably means something to the LTFRB and it may mean something to the rider.

Some of the trike drivers that meet the people ferry from Cebu are allowed to go anywhere in Dumaguete, some can only go to the public market. Or so they claim.

Someone posted there are trikes that only travel between outlying brgys and the public market. That is consistent with the trikes having brgy names, the different colors and that some drivers say they can only go to the market. I called that a route though it now seems an Area is a better name.

It makes sense (which means in the Philippines that what follows is the least likely scenario to be true) that the LTFRB divies up trikes to different areas so that all the trikes don't congergate in the most profitable places. The brgy names and/or number colors indicate these areas. Some areas are defined as being from an outlying brgy to the public market and everything in between. A driver heading out from the market wants to fill his trike, so it would be more profitable for him and easier for the customers to find a trike who wants to go to their brgy if such trikes could be found at a specific place near the market.

In the words of Dennis Miller, 'Of course that's just my opinion, I could be wrong'.

The universe has a sense of humor, so I expect that just about the time I am able to predict more often than not an interaction with a trike driver I will have a motorcycle.

 

Systems analysis

By Jove, I think you have it.

 

And a lot of other people within the city too.......:D

 

I met a guy who has lived here for several months and uses trikes for most of his transportation. I asked him about my theory that their are spots in town where trikes congergate and fill up with passengers before heading out for the outlying brgys. 'Terminals' he called them, obviously displaying cultural insensitivity by applying a term used in orderly and systematic cultures to the chaos of the Phils. He was not describing the trike lines one sees at Lee Plaza or the public market.

He must have been on drugs because he describe a surreal convention where locals go to these "locations" (I can't call them terminals) to find a trike headed out of town and then they sit in the trike and wait for it to fill up before heading out. I asked if he ever did the sit and wait just to get a 9 peso ride home instead of a 50 peso one. 'Once' was his reply, just to see if the trike driver would let him.

Today I left Lee Plaza with a couple bags of groceries at 3:30pm and boarded a trike from the waiting line. His only other passenger had an in town destination north west (or so it seemed) from the public market. The trike driver then took a convuluted path instead of heading toward my destination. He drove past or through three of these "locations" where I observed serveral stationary trikes each with several passengers waiting for who knows what.

I'm sure that what I saw is not what he described. Obviously these were Buddists doing the rarely seen 'Sitting In Tricycle' meditation.

 

Here is some more useful information concerning the trikes. Some trike drivers, depending on whether they own the trike or rent it and the rules that the owner has laid down for them, are hireable as a private convayance for the rest of their day for a reasonable commission. If the driver is renting the trike for say 60 pesos, and you make him an offer that will cover his commission and gas, for about 300 pesos or so you can get that trikes services for the rest of his day if he is willing and it is not against his boss's policy and at the end of the day he will have some pocket money. Something to consider if you need exclusive use of a cab.

 

I realize he originally agreed to double fare. But, in most cases, mine for sure, I will not pay any more than a Filipino will for the same service. It is all about what is right, not whether we can afford to pay x number piso more for a service or product. Fortunately, for me, and because I have lived in the Philippines for so many years, I typically know a given rate from any given point to another.

Here is a page I wrote about that, years ago:

http://www.livingincebu.com/ropes.htm

 

i find some people here are rude, not helpful at all...but welcome to dumagute, Enjoyyy...