Motor Vehicles in the Philippines

When you visit Manila, it seems as though all the motor vehicles in the Philippines are in Manila at the same time. getting around Manila is relatively easy, but can take some time during peak periods.

The World Bank has published statistics for the number of motor vehicles per 1,000 population for a lot of countries in the world, including the Philippines. “Motor vehicles” includes cars, buses, and freight vehicles but does not include two-wheelers.The number per 1,000 for the Philippines is an average of 30 for the period 2008 to 2012.

The population of the Philippines is approximately 98 million, so this means that there are some 29.4 million motor vehicles in the Philippines.

So, how does this compare with other countries? Some comparisons in Europe are:

The Americas are also an interesting comparison:

But how does the Philippines compare with the countries nearer to it in South East Asia?

Some of the other countries in SE Asia do not have any figures so the comparison is quite limited.

So what conclusion can you draw from these figures? Firstly, there are a lot of vehicles in the Philippines! A high concentration is obviously in Manila. Some of the rural and remote areas will have very few vehicles, although the ubiquitous jeepney gets to most places.

Secondly, there is clearly an opportunity for more vehicles as the population becomes more wealthy arising out of the economic development of the country.

Thirdly, there is a high reliance on public transport throughout the Philippines and this has plenty of scope for further development to develop the whole public transport infrastructure throughout the Philippines. New transport infrastructure in manila is well underway through various PPP initiatives.