Analysis of the public transport modernization via system reconfiguration: The ongoing case in the Philippines

Abstract We present the ongoing Public Utility Vehicle Modernization Program (PUVMP) as a case study in socio-technical transition studies in the transport sector. The ongoing reform project, initiated and implemented by the national government, aims for a wholesale change of the public land transportation industry of the Philippines. Using a theoretical framework that combines institutional entrepreneurship, transition experiments, multi-level perspective and politics of transitions, we unpack the different elements comprising the PUVMP and their interactions, including power dynamics, to better understand and manage the complexity and dependencies of transition. A key point of the article is that gradual and incremental change is the most realistic representation of the socio-technical transition by PUVMP. This departs from the conceptualization that dominates transition studies of regime shift or niche disruptions due to singular technologies at the niche level.