Routes to change: Sakay.ph co-founder on why better transport starts with better systems, not bigger promises

That gap was part of the thinking behind Sakay.ph, the free transit app Yu co-founded to give commuters step-by-step directions around Metro Manila. Unlike mapping services built primarily around formal transport networks, Sakay accounts for the mix of trains and buses, jeepneys, UV Express vehicles, P2P (point-to-point) buses and tricycles that Filipinos actually rely on.

Thirteen years into building the company, Yu is clear about the limits of what technology can achieve. And that clarity may be one of his more useful lessons in leadership.

“The stereotype of the startup founder is someone grandiose, with big dreams about changing the world,” he says. Sakay, by contrast, began with a more modest ambition: to make a useful product. Transforming an entire industry, he recognised, was never something a single company could control.

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The distinction matters in transport, where infrastructure, regulation, government agencies, operators and commuters are all part of the same system. An app can help someone find the right jeepney. It cannot put more jeepneys on the road, build a bus rapid transit line or create the political will to change how a city moves.

What it can do is make the system less opaque.

Yu believes one of the biggest misconceptions about Philippine mobility is that parts of it are simply unknowable because they are not formalised. Routes change, vehicles do not always follow fixed schedules, and information can exist in places as disparate as Facebook posts and paper records. But a system does not have to be neat to be understood. “We can’t rely only on gut feel forever,” he says. That belief has influenced Sakay's role. The company has become a reference point for route information, to the extent that government workers and transport operators have sometimes gone to Sakay to seek it. Yu calls this “a bit terrifying”, but also sees it as evidence that the company has become a trusted keeper of transport knowledge.

Its larger ambition, however, extends beyond helping individual commuters. Yu wants policymakers and cities to stop treating transport interventions as isolated projects. GPS tracking, for instance, should not simply produce a dashboard that nobody consults. Used properly, it can reveal how vehicles perform over time, where people travel, where congestion builds and how routes might be improved.

There are already signs of what that could look like. Local governments have used Sakay's information to plan routes, while cities such as Quezon City have begun funding their own free public transport services. Yu and his team have also advocated for GPS monitoring and technology-assisted decisions around route assignments and fleet sizes.

Still, progress can be frustratingly slow. Yu describes a series of “chicken-and-egg” problems: a government department may want to launch a GPS-monitoring project but cannot secure funding without a pilot; a technology company may offer the pilot at little cost, only for the department to lack the personnel to manage it. Even if a useful solution exists within the same institutional constraints as the larger system it is trying to improve.

For a founder working on a problem affecting millions, the temptation might be to promise transformation. Yu has chosen patience instead.

His generation of founders came of age during the “move fast, break things” era of startups, when rapid growth, large valuations and dramatic disruption were often treated as ends in themselves. His advice is markedly less glamorous: be ready for the long haul. Good solutions take time, and securing the support to implement them can take even longer.

That patience is not passive. Yu's preferred approach is to keep identifying improvements within his sphere of influence, while recognising when larger structural change is necessary. “Small improvements are still important improvements,” he says.

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It is also why he does not see Sakay's future as simply a matter of building a bigger app. His vision for Metro Manila begins with something deceptively straightforward: put GPS monitoring and performance tracking on one highly visible public transport vehicle. Give commuters real-time locations and estimated travel times. Use the information to improve operations and build a body of evidence that policymakers can act on. From there, scale it across fleets and modes.

The undertaking would require sustained commitment from both the government and the private sector. But Yu does not see it as a distant fantasy. Smaller versions are already working in some cities and fleets, and he believes the country could be only “one or two solid policy shifts” away from making broader change possible.

Ultimately, that is the legacy Yu wants Sakay.ph to leave. Not necessarily an app that commuters remember by name, but a better way of understanding and improving the system around them. “We prefer to be remembered for the change,” he says.

It is a fitting ambition for a company built around movement. The destination may be a more efficient, responsive transport system; getting there, Yu knows, will require the less glamorous work of staying the course, proving what works and making the next improvement possible.

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