Crowdsourcing, digital co-production and collaborative governance for modernizing local public transport services: The exemplar of General Santos City, Philippines

Abstract

Informal transport continues to play a significant role in the urban transport systems of developing countries. Modernizing informal transport requires a co-ordinated approach to ensure inclusive and sustainable transition. Massive reforms to the Philippines’ public transport system were rolled out in 2017 through its Public Utility Vehicle Modernization Program (PUVMP) aimed at modernizing the country’s jeepney industry. Consequently, there is a need to explore collaborative governance mechanisms to sustain the momentum of modernization reforms. A framework integrating crowdsourcing and digital co-production toward collaborative governance is explored through participatory action research based on the deployment of the SafeTravelPH public transport crowdsourcing platform in General Santos City, Philippines. The SafeTravelPH app was developed at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. The platform actively engages the government, transport industry providers, and passengers in sharing transformative information to improve public transport by collecting and analyzing realtime data on vehicle trajectory, boarding and alighting locations, occupancy and other public transport operational parameters. The study demonstrates the potential of digital technologies and collaborative governance approaches in modernizing local public transport services. The experiences of General Santos City can provide an exemplar for other cities in the Philippines and other developing countries.