Since last year, several ambulances have been caught using the EDSA Busway with no patients on board and even with no emergency situations to respond to. 

In June last year for instance, two ambulances used the EDSA Busway to catch an even in a mall in Pasay City while the most recent happened in February this year when another ambulance—even using blinkers—entered the bus lane without patient on board.

This is one of the the reasons, according to the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA), why it could not program in the computer system of the No-Contact Apprehension Policy (NCAP) an automatic exemption of all vehicles with sirens and blinkers. 

“We need to make sure that the use of those vehicles is indeed for legitimate emergency situation because we already have a case before of a funeral service vehicle with ambulance marking which abused this privilege,” said MMDA chairperson Don Artes.

“We cannot program our NCAP system to automatically exempt vehicles with sirens and blinkers because this may be abused,” he added.

But how does the MMDA check if the use of ambulance and firetrucks are legitimate?

Artes explained that before a notice of violation is sent to the registered vehicle owner, a team of veteran enforcers is designated to conduct a thorough review if there are factors that would justify the violation.

For instance, a car that suddenly swerved could be tagged by the artificial intelligence-capable CCTV cameras for violation but the team of validators may see later that there was an obstruction on the road that justified the swerving. 

In those cases, no notice of violation would be sent to the registered car owner.

“Under NCAP, all the vehicles that would be tagged by the AI-technology CCTV cameras will be subjected to automatic review, which means that NCAP personnel will manually review the violation and if it is found out that there’s no violation, then no notice of violation would be sent,” said Artes. 

The same is true in cases of ambulances and firetrucks, according to Artes.

If, for instance, an ambulance was seen on the camera beating or ignoring the red traffic light, the supposed violation of the ambulance would be ignored by NCAP personnel along with the violations of the vehicles that gave way. 

Artes maintained that there must be a responsible use of emergency vehicles.

Earlier, Artes said motorists could avail of online challenge on notice of violations sent to them through an online form available on MMDA Facebook page and website. 

He said the MMDA could even sent a video of the violation to the motorists.