At the e-jeepney launch, 27 February 2012. FILE PHOTO BY DINO MARI TESTA

MANILA – Electric jeepneys are set to ply the SM North-Katipunan Avenue-SM Megamall route by the end of this year, creating the first electric vehicle rapid transit system in the country.

Former congressman Sigfrido Tinga, executive director of Knowledge Driven Transformation (KDT), told InterAksyon.com that about 20 e-jeeps, dubbed as City Optimized Managed Environmental Transport (COMET), will start ferrying passengers to and from the two SM malls by the first week of December.

Another 30 units would be added in time for Christmas, he said. Passengers will be charged the same fare as that of ordinary diesel-fed jeeps.

These zero-emission e-jeeps are deployed as a managed transport system like buses, but don’t need dedicated lanes. Drivers also do not have to fight over passengers, which is one of the main causes of traffic snarls, since drivers will receive salaries instead of them coughing up a “boundary” to operators.

“The way the system works is it’s using prepaid cards so we get to collect the fares so we pay the owners [of the fleet], the drivers. Ang owners ang habol namin mas malaki kita nila dito kasi di naman lilipat yan kung mas maliit kita nila. We’ve done the numbers,” Tinga said on the sidelines of SM Supermalls’ climate change forum today.

Based on existing jeepney rates, drivers earn P3,000-3,500 a day.

A unit owner gets to earn around P25,000 a month from fares and media revenues (the e-jeeps can be equipped with LCDs for advertisements). Minus the amortization for the units, the payback period is less than two years.

For the pilot route, the projected daily fare collection per driver is around P4,000-5,000 a day.

“We wanted a pilot route that will address the demographics–you have students, you have the office workers and the shoppers. For us it’s a good test route to determine the main clientele,” Tinga said.

According to Tinga’s presentation before the forum, the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) has ceased issuing franchises to diesel jeepneys, and plans to replace those that are at least 15 years old.

The LTFRB franchise for electric vehicle is P70 while the black market franchise is P100,000 for diesel jeepneys.

Tinga said the COMET costs P250,000 per unit and in contrast, cheaper than the P700,000 for a regular diesel engine jeepney.

The e-jeeps are also cheaper to operate with a daily cost of P200 battery lease and P400 electricity cost, 40 percent less than that of diesel-fed counterparts.

Tinga said his company would take care of “all the aspects of operating the vehicle” while the COMET franchise owners will just wait for their weekly remittance via ATMs, since the passengers pay through a fully-automated prepaid smartcard or through smartphones. Drivers, on the other hand, will still get their wages daily.

The COMETs are optimized for urban areas and have an 80-km range and 60-km per hour speed, with air suspension, power steering and disc brakes (old jeeps use the obsolete drum brakes). These are powered by lithium iron phosphate batteries that have a life of 5-7 years. The batteries can be fully charged in four hours from a 220v outlet.

These e-vehicles can ferry 16 passengers, and have a gross vehicle weight of 2,500 pounds and 3,000 pounds of load capacity.

The COMETs have on-board computer and GPS system that allows the command center to monitor and dispatch each vehicle and manage the entire fleet. This provides a more organized passenger pick-up at regular stops.

After deploying the initial 50 units, Global Electric Transport–KDT’s partner in this endeavor–will roll out 600 units more starting first quarter of 2014. The three additional routes for these units have yet to be determined in collaboration with SM Supermalls, Tinga said.

KDT is also talking to drivers’ associations into adopting the e-vehicle, so smoke-belching jeepneys would be off Metro Manila’s streets as soon as possible.

Tinga said the company aims to replace 25,280 old jeeps with COMETs in Metro Manila by 2018. This translates to at least two billion passengers ferried.

There are about 55,000 jeepneys in Metro Manila alone and according to estimates by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), the country loses P2.4 billion a day to the traffic these jeepneys help create when these load and unload passengers anywhere the drivers please.