Skynet of our streets

Starting this week, motorists will need to watch from above as the no contact apprehension policy (NCAP) has been reinstated. Cameras that have always been monitoring us are now actively looking for rule breakers since they will now be enhanced with artificial intelligence (AI).

The Supreme Court (SC) has partially lifted the temporary restraining order (TRO) on the NCAP after the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) filed a motion for reconsideration.

Motorists violating traffic rules on major roads such as EDSA, Roxas Boulevard and Commonwealth, will be mailed their traffic tickets.

Road discipline is the end goal here for the MMDA. According to the agency, there were 833,097 traffic violations flagged by its CCTV cameras over the past 32 months, which means an average of 26,034 violations per month.

It also said that before the suspension of the NCAP in August 2022, the documented traffic violations averaged 9,500 per month, and in March 2025 there were 12,566 documented traffic violations. https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1250559

If documented violations mean the number of traffic tickets issued by MMDA personnel to erring drivers, then the March number implies that using manpower alone to enforce traffic rules captures only 48 percent of the actual number of traffic violations. While it does not necessarily mean a 1:1 ratio, doubling the number of MMDA personnel on the road is not an efficient strategy to achieve 100-percent road discipline.

Hence, we have the NCAP approach of automating traffic enforcement and leveraging the Land Transportation Office (LTO) database of vehicles and vehicle owners.

However, we still need to go back to the goals of NCAP or the DoTr with respect to Metro Manila traffic. The number of traffic violations may not be the only indicator to consider. If treated as an economic or optimization problem, is the NCAP expected to reduce the number of traffic violations to zero? Consequently, will zero traffic violations increase or decrease the intensity of traffic? Make it more or less bearable?

In some ways, it will boil down to the individual motorists. Road discipline, like ethics, according to Aldo Leopold, is what you do when nobody is looking.

Cameras and the NCAP change that. Somebody is now looking. Not just during rush hour. It is just like the Terminator.

The NCAP does not sleep or eat and as earth’s protector in the fictional dystopian future, Kyle Reese described his Terminator nemesis, “That’s what it does. That’s all it does!”

If the Terminator scared you in 1984, the NCAP should make motorists feel guarded and aware as well in 2025.

However, regardless of this awareness of a big brother watching the main roads, individual actions can ignore this awareness and guarded knowledge.

Behavioral economic models of individuals factors how we process risk and return, and information from other motorists on the road. As discussed in a previous article on why motorcycle riders take the risk of using the EDSA busway despite expensive penalties, roadway behavior can sometimes be irrational against the rational expectations theory.

To jolt motorists who may ignore the cameras under NCAP to rationality (ergo disciplined), there may be a need for scarecrows on EDSA and the other monitored roads.

Motorists should regulate their behavior, preferably starting this Monday. Have a game plan whenever you hit the road. By planning your drive and driving your plan, you can avoid getting cited for an avoidable traffic violation, such as using your smartphone while driving.

The Terminator and Skynet are fictional villains of this imagined battle between man and machine. The MMDA and its cameras and the NCAP are not about such a battle. Driving and riding on our roads is an everyday struggle. Despite such struggles that can bring out the worst in us, society needs to be better as men. All we need to do is look up and directly at the cameras above.