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🚲 Mobility
🇵🇭 Manila

MMDA Metrobase Traffic Command Centre & Public Traffic Feed

The MMDA runs Metro Manila's traffic from Metrobase, a round-the-clock control room that Indra rebuilt in 2014 around its Hermes signal system, then expanded in July 2023 into a 300-million-peso command centre watching 403 cameras over 899 km of agency-owned fibre. Operators retime signals remotely, and in June 2025 the MMDA stripped countdown timers from 96 intersections in favour of sensor-actuated ones. It broadcasts conditions as a colour-coded map and a busy social feed, but publishes no machine-readable data. JICA priced Metro Manila's congestion at 3.5 billion pesos a day in a 2017 survey.

Live 📅 since 2014 ✔ Editor-reviewed

✔ Reviewed by the 1001 Smart Cities editorial desk · 🔎 Last verified

🚲 MobilityTraffic managementSensors & IoTSafety & security

🎓 Lesson

A command centre buys visibility, not capacity. The MMDA can see and retime the network in real time, yet the cost of Metro Manila's congestion is still quoted from a 2017 survey, because no one has measured whether any of it helped.

Evidence• No measured figure
Scale🗺️ Regional
Cost≈PHP300m (2023 command centre)

Sources

↗ JICA — record of discussions on intelligent transportation systems with the MMDAJICA's own wording for the congestion cost: 3.5 billion pesos per day based on a survey conducted in 2017, projected to reach 5.4 billion pesos per day by 2035 without intervention. Also dates the comprehensive traffic management plan and the three-year technical cooperation signed 21 February 2025.
↗ Indra Group — the traffic management system now used in Metro ManilaSupplier account of Metrobase version 2.0 and the Hermes system: awarded 2013, inaugurated 2014, 85 key intersections in the first phase with capacity for more than 500, centralised adaptive signal control and a round-the-clock command and control centre.
↗ Philippine News Agency — the MMDA inaugurates a 300-million-peso command centreState news agency report of the 12 July 2023 inauguration: 300 million pesos, 403 CCTV cameras, 899 km of agency-owned fibre optic network and radio dispatch. Site returns 503 to automated fetching; the same figures are carried by three other outlets.
↗ GMA News — the MMDA installs sensor-based traffic lights and removes countdown timersJune 2025: 96 countdown timers removed from signalised intersections and replaced by sensor-actuated signals, with the MMDA chairman explaining that green time is shortened and reallocated by measured volume. Establishes that the signals are adaptive rather than fixed-time.
↗ Rappler fact check — AI programs are not yet integrated into the new command centreSupports the decision not to tag this entry as AI: the 2023 command centre was launched without the AI analytics it was popularly credited with.
↗ mmda-traffic-api — a third-party wrapperEvidence that there is no official traffic API: developers built unofficial wrappers around the broadcaster-hosted traffic monitoring feed to obtain segment-level data.
📎 Cite this project

1001 Smart Cities (2026). “MMDA Metrobase Traffic Command Centre & Public Traffic Feed” — Manila, Philippines. The Smart City Atlas. https://1001smartcities.org/projects/manila-mmda-traffic-command/ (last verified 2026-07-26). Data: CC BY 4.0.

The underlying data is free to reuse with attribution — see the open data page.

🔗 Related projects

🇰🇷 TOPIS — Seoul Transport Operation & Information Service · Seoul TOPIS (2005) pioneered the citywide control tower; Manila's Metrobase, rebuilt by Indra in 2014, still publishes only a colour map. 🇻🇳 HCMC Intelligent Traffic Control Center · Ho Chi Minh City Ho Chi Minh City's 2020 centre uses AI cameras to fine drivers; Manila's watches 403 cameras and, a fact check found, runs no AI. 🇮🇳 Open Transit Data Portal & Live Bus Feeds · New Delhi Delhi published open GTFS in 2018, flaws and all; Manila's traffic centre broadcasts a colour map, so developers scrape it. 🇵🇭 EDSA Busway (Carousel) · Manila The centre's counterpart on EDSA: 166 busway cameras the MMDA co-launched in 2024 to time how long buses sit at stations.

🧭 Explore the atlas

🏙️ Manila Explore every verified project and the city's smart-city story. 🚲 Mobility Browse the main topic behind this project. 📖 Adaptive traffic signals Traffic lights that retime themselves in real time from live sensor data to match actual traffic, instead of running a fixed pre-set schedule. 📖 ANPR (automatic number-plate recognition) Camera technology that reads vehicle number plates automatically, used to enforce road-pricing and clean-air zones without toll booths. 📖 Congestion pricing Charging drivers a fee to use busy roads at busy times, so traffic thins out and remaining trips flow more freely. 🚦 Asphalt or algorithms Read the wider analysis and comparison. 🪦 Why smart cities fail Read the wider analysis and comparison.

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