Transportation Secretary Arturo Tugade on Thursday wants Clark Freeport as a hub for point-to-point bus service in a bid to attract more passengers and airlines at the Clark International Airport (CRK).
“Our plan is to have a common station area inside Clark where will make it as a hub for P2Ps, we are currently looking for an area to serve the catchment area as well as those in Metro Manila,” Tugade said during the launching of the Point-2-Point Bus Service between Clark to Manila.
The new project of the DOTr is being serviced by the Genesis Transport Service.
Tugade said this new route will be Clark- North Edsa and Clark-NAIA saying “this is a project that is intended to do connectivity in Clark and ease traffic in Metro Manila.”
According to Tugade they are looking at more P2Ps that will serve the areas of Lubao in Pampanga, Dagupan City in Pangasinan, Subic in Zambales, Malolos in Bulacan, Tarlac and San Jose City in Nueva Ecija wherein Clark would be the main hub of P2Ps in the country.
“It is our intention to have two P2Ps in Clark, but we are looking at adding 6 more P2Ps to better serve the stakeholders and residents in this areas where they can take their bus service for their convenience,” Tugade stressed.
“By end of the 2017, we expect to have 8 P2Ps in the area and Clark will be the operations hub in this part of Luzon,” he added.
Rely Jabuna, operations manager of the Genesis said that “this is a bus run of many firsts and which is virtually making history and this is speaking from the context of the country’s land transport service,” Jabuna said Genesis will be using brand new 48 Bus units for the P2P projects for the provinces.
“Clark and Genesis have been partners for years though on a shuttle operations basis. That we won in the bidding for the P2P bus service based in Clark just sealed out permanent partnership.” He added.
At the same time, Tugade also said the inauguration and construction for the new P12.55 Billion Clark Passenger Terminal building will start either by the end of this year or the first quarter of 2018 after the Bases Conversion Development Authority (BCDA) recently conducted the Pre-bidding for the multi-billion project wherein 7 groups participated in the process.
“Hopefully by 2021 we will have a modern and world class airport in Clark,”
‘The next 3 years will be a changing years for Clark and we need the support of every stakeholders and residents in this areas,” he added.
Tugade said he is focused on the development not only in Clark as well as in the Clark Airport. –Photo by Deng Pangilinan