OPERATORS of public utility vehicles, school and tourist buses, and even cargo trucks plying routes inside the National Capital Region will have to follow a color scheme starting July, according to the Metro Manila Development Authority.
Corazon Jimenez, MMDA general manager, said Chairman Francis Tolentino had issued Memorandum Circular 5 to strengthen MMDA Resolution 11-02 Series of 2011 to enforce tagging for easy identification.
License plate numbers must be painted on the roof, front, back, and two sides of vehicles using a specific color code.
“Vehicles that do not comply would be considered ‘colorum’ or out-of-line,” Jimenez said.
For city buses plying the 24-kilometer Edsa, operators must make use of yellow; non-Edsa city buses use orange.
MMDA has assigned red to provincial buses passing through Edsa along with violet for those using other routes.
Passenger jeepneys will be in brown; metered taxis, blue; so-called FX taxis, green.
Instead of the familiar yellow, school service vehicles will be in gray or silver.
Pink is reserved for tourist or shuttle buses with gold for cargo trucks.
As planned, the color scheme will be enforced also on secondary roads.
“With the implementation of the vehicle tagging scheme, it will be easier for us to spot traffic violators and those involved in accidents and criminal cases through our closed-circuit television cameras,” Tolentino said.
He said the no-physical contact policy in apprehending errant motorists would be made easier because the agency’s 68 cameras could get better images of the vehicle licence numbers.
Jimenez said color coding should not be taken lightly.
“We would recommend to the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board the suspension or cancellation of franchises,” she said, noting that penalties also applied under present resolutions passed by the Metro Manila Council, the MMDA’s policy-making body.
