How old is your bus really?
ROBERT SIY
On February 20, 2017, a bus loaded with students on a school camping trip crashed in Tanay, Rizal, killing 15 and injuring 40 passengers. According to survivor accounts, the brakes of the bus failed and it slammed into a utility pole.
The certificate of registration showed the bus was manufactured in 2004. From photos of its exterior, the Panda Coach Tours and Transport bus looked relatively new with a bright blue coat of paint, large glass windows, and a modern bus body. But appearances can be deceiving.
After recording the engine and chassis numbers of the bus, LTFRB contacted the manufacturer, Hino Motors of Japan, and checked the year the bus was produced. Hino reported the bus was made in 1988. It was 29 years old.
The daily wear and tear on a public utility vehicle (PUV), sometimes on rough roads, limits its useful life. A bus in active service can easily travel 100,000 kilometers a year and over a million kilometers in a decade. Having a cap on the usable life of a bus helps to protect the lives of passengers and other road users. An old vehicle is also less likely to meet emissions standards.
For these reasons, LTFRB sets a maximum age of 15 years for a bus (this rule was also recently applied to jeepneys with a grace period for compliance). Moreover, DOTr requires that the age of the vehicle is reckoned by the age of its oldest major part. So putting on a brand-new body or even a new engine does not bring the age of a bus to zero.
In South Korea, for example, the maximum age of a public bus is 11 years. However, once buses reach around seven years of service, many are already offered by their owners for sale. This is because motor vehicle inspection in South Korea, which its buses undergo every six months, is rigorous, fully automated, and transparent. Even the noise generated by the operation of the bus is measured. Many buses in South Korea older than seven years fail to pass inspection. Not surprisingly, second-hand Korean, Chinese and Japanese buses find their way to the Philippines.
The Panda bus is probably not the only bus in service that has breached the 15-year rule. How was a 29-year old bus recorded as a 13-year old bus? Here is one possible explanation.
At the time of importation of a used bus or truck, the customs declaration can misrepresent the year of manufacture. Import documents with the wrong vehicle age are then submitted to LTO and become the basis for the registration. If the vehicle is recorded by LTO as manufactured in 2004 (instead of 1988), the same is recorded in the franchise granted by LTFRB.
The body of the second-hand bus or truck is sometimes rebuilt with modern design and repainted so it can pass for a younger vehicle. Thus, the bus becomes “youthful” again.
The misdeclaration of the age of public transport vehicles is a major safety issue as it places millions of Filipinos at risk. It’s therefore incumbent on government and the transport industry to ensure that the age of public transport vehicles is accurate, that motor vehicle inspection is of high standard, and that overage and unsafe vehicles are removed from service.
There are two ways of accurately determining the vehicle age and checking whether the declared age is correct. One is to look for the 17-digit Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) which reveals details about when and where the vehicle was built and its manufacturer. It’s a number that is unique to the vehicle. The VIN can be found in several places such as the side of the driver’s door, the dashboard, and on the frame supporting the engine.
Every vehicle manufactured since 1981 is supposed to have a VIN number. In the VIN’s 17-digit string of letters and numbers, the 10th digit reveals the year of manufacture of the vehicle. There are many guides online how to decode the letter or number in the 10th digit of the VIN.
If the VIN number is missing, you can send the engine and chassis number to the vehicle manufacturer and ask when the vehicle was manufactured. If the VIN, engine or chassis numbers are illegible, there’s good possibility that the numbers were intentionally erased to disguise the vehicle’s age.
It’s recommended that regular motor vehicle inspection of public transport vehicles check the accuracy of the vehicle’s VIN, engine and chassis numbers and use the VIN to verify the vehicle age. More importantly, the vehicle inspection process should be reliable and free from corruption. Every day, the weaknesses in the vehicle inspection process are seen and felt by all. Many old and unsafe vehicles remain on the roads and their harmful emissions contaminate the air.
Millions of commuters rely daily on LTO’s certification that motor vehicles, especially PUVs, are safe.
LTO is moving in the right direction towards a fully automated motor vehicle inspection system (MVIS), free of human input in determining road-worthiness. For all the wrong reasons, there’s likely to be strong pressure from many quarters for the automated MVIS equipment to fail or be non-functional so that human discretion will remain as part of the inspection process. LTO should have good strategies to avoid this.
One important challenge is how to ensure the integrity of the vehicle age verification process. If some government personnel were involved in falsifying the vehicle age, the same parties may not be inclined to uncover discrepancies in the vehicle registration data. For this reason, it may be useful to involve civil society or the private sector, either to conduct an independent audit of the accuracy of vehicle age in LTO and LTFRB records, or to undertake an actual data verification and cleansing exercise. Lives will be saved.
On Tuesday this week, a Joyselle Bus crashed into a car, another bus, and a waiting shed in the Magallanes southbound section of EDSA, sending 20 persons to the hospital and locking up traffic for hours. It would be interesting to know what the VIN, chassis and engine numbers of the bus will tell us about its age and history.
Robert Y. Siy is a development economist, city and regional planner, and public transport advocate. He can be reached at mobilitymatters.ph@yahoo.comorfollowed on Twitter @RobertRsiy
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