DCOTT: ‘Paeng’, inflation attributed to low bus trips

THE Davao City Overland Transport Terminal (DCOTT) manager said they had few passengers this year, possibly due to the impact of inflation and tropical storm Paeng's destruction.

“Isa gyud sa akoang nakita is ang bagyong Paeng, naa tay ruta nga Visayas and Luzon, naapektuhan gyud ning Barmm (Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao) diin daghan gyud pud ang mga pasahero nga sa una gaulian pud diha (We are considering that one of the factors that we have lesser volume of passengers this year is because of the tropical storm Paeng. We have trips in Visayas and Luzon, then parts of Barmm were also affected and there are a lot of passengers usually in these routes),” Aisa Yusop, DCOTT manager, said in an interview with the Davao City Disaster Radio on November 1, 2022.

She said that they still have generated 1,000 trips but it failed to reach 1,500 as forecasted.

“Naabot gihapon ta og 1,000 plus trips a day pero wala gyud tong moabot ta sa 1,500 pataas (We still have at least 1,000 trips a day but not more than 1,500),” Yusop said.

Yusop said they even have lesser trips going to Cagayan de Oro (CDO) City.

“Sa una ako nasayod nga daghan kaayo ang mga byahero nga gaulian diha and ni-decrease pud usab tungod kay kita pud nasayod nga sa CDO naay bahaunon diha nga part (We all knew that there are a lot passengers going to CDO but since there are also parts in that city commonly affected by flood, this route also has a decrease of number of passengers),” Yusop said.

Yusop said the impact of inflation also affected the passengers as the bus operators have already implemented the fare increase. KSD