Impact of the Strong Republic Nautical Highway on the movement of selected agricultural products in the Philippines

• Main Authors: De Guia, Haybert Josef J., Saldo, Mark Anthony B.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2010
• Subjects: Roads > Philippines; Harbors > Philippines; Transportation engineering > Philippines; Transportation > Planning > Evaluation; Highway planning > Philippines; Civil Engineering
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_bachelors/5157
• Institution: De La Salle University

The Philippines is an archipelago of approximately 7,107 islands. It has a long coastline that extends to 36,289 kilometers. One of the persistent issues raised by shippers was the high cost of transport from Mindanao to Manila. Among others, Roll-on/roll-off (Ro-Ro) shipping was proposed as a solution to the transport problem. In 2003 the Strong Republic Nautical Highway (SRNH) was formally launched and consists of three main nautical highways: the Western Nautical Highway, the Central Nautical Highway and the Eastern Nautical Highway. Currently, only the Western Nautical Highway is analyzed in this study since it is the only operational network in the SRNH. After the integration of the nautical highway system, many areas were developed, the inter-island shipping industry was restructured, transportation costs were reduced, tourism was enhanced, and logistics operations and strategy of industries were changed. This study identified and assessed the impact of the SNRH on the movement of perishable agricultural goods specifically palay and banana, from Mindanao to Manila. The movement of the goods (banana and palay) is evaluated based on the production and consumption of each region. The evaluation of the cost for each trip and trip distribution were analyzed using operations research (optimization), transportation model, and transshipment model through the EMME program. Considering trucks and jeepneys via RORO, and long haul via conventional shipping, results showed that as the distance increases, the unit cost of transporting via RORO also increases. Results of the simulation show that transporting banana and palay via RORO remain to be more cost effective than moving them via long-haul shipping over short distances.