Project Title & Location
LAND USE ANALYSIS FOR THE REHABILITATION OF PANAY RAILWAY
Panay Island

Client
PHILIPPINE DRAVO ENGINEERING CORPORATION

Project Completion
1999

Associated Firms
Transportas Consulting

Services Provided
- Regional Land Use Analysis

The Panay Railway, during its existence was a vital transport mode of the Provinces of Iloilo and Capiz. It lost its ascendancy in handling goods and people in the 1990's when an efficient highway trunk was built in parallel with the railway line. During that period the road network was used as a strategy to link the major towns of both provinces.

Philippine veterans Investment and Development Corporation (Phividec), an agency of government was the last operators of the railway system. Together with the PNR and the asset Privatization agency of government Philvidec commissioned a study to determine the feasibility of the railway line. PROS was assigned the segment on the regional analysis of developments, conditions and impacts along 2-kilometers on both sides of the line. The study was mandated on the context of the Regional Development Framework for the area. The railway, if operational, was viewed as a system that can aid in achieving regional development goals, particularly in Capiz and Iloilo. The study of PROS concentrated on a land strategy dominantly agricultural, with clusters of urban functions and industrial developments. These cover:

a. Population movement
b. Flow of goods from farms to the cities
c. Human settlement disposition and hierarchies for future densification
d. Physical attributes of the land, 2-kilometer deep along the railway right-of-way

Whether the assumptions and recommendations will be economically sustainable for the two provinces was a key element of the study. Specification and complementation of the function of the forms were also analyzed in order to revitalize development through a railway transport mode.