Cavite Batangas Transport Terminal Officially Open

As of early today, August 6, 2013, the South West Integrated Provincial Transport Terminal became operational.  Buses coming from Cavite and Batangas through Coastal Road will no longer enter the metro.  Instead, all will be collecting and dropping off passengers at the new terminal, eventually lessening the volume of buses plying Roxas Boulevard and EDSA pooling the provincial buses to one location and preventing colorum buses from operating the route via a new dispatch system.

The location.

The SWIPTT is one of the three terminals planned by MMDA (there's one in Alabang to manage South Luzon buses, and another one in Trinoma in Quezon City to manage buses from the North.) More on the SWIPTT through a fellow travel and mapping advocate Schadow1 Expeditions.

I got the chance to experience the first day of operations, going home from work this morning.

This is where buses-in-waiting would collect, behind Coastal Mall.

Passengers coming out of SWIPTT towards the staging area of Metro buses in front of Coastal Mall

View on approach.

Maneuver area.

Directions to waiting area, chapel, food court, toilet, terminal office.

Bus bays.

Bus exit (with a bus replica in danger of falling on passers by, IMHO)

My observations:

1. There are no ventilation systems installed within the terminal area. Even though it is an open air terminal, exhaust smoke from buses still accumulate and cause respiratory irritation. It would take strong winds to keep the air comfortable for breathing.
2. Even though this opening had been announced for a while, not enough information had been sent out to educate commuters and probably bus drivers of how it is supposed to work inside. Passengers have no clue where they need to fall in line to wait for their buses. There are marshals scattered around the terminal, directing passengers where to go, so it would be on the spot for you to figure out what the marshals are telling you.
3. Buses are given 15 minutes inside the terminal to collect passengers.  Either the bus is already full or the 15 minutes is up, the bus must leave the terminal. After it leaves the terminal, the bus can still load passengers before it turns right to Coastal Road, especially while the traffic light is red (that's what the bus I was on did earlier.)  Probably traffic enforcers will prevent that from happening in the future.
4. Commuters bound to Baclaran may take the Metro bus or jeepneys. 
   UPDATE (8/6/13 7:00PM): Those who are bound to MOA now need one extra ride since there are no direct routes from Coastal Mall to MOA yet. My sister who works in an office at MOA only had before to ride the bus from Kawit and get off directly at Baclaran to ride the MOA multicabs there. Now she has to take the jeep to Baclaran first, then multicab to MOA.  There are PUVs waiting in front of Coastal Mall going to MOA via Macapagal Ave.(I was only able to confirm going to work.)

Overall, the SWIPTT looks promising. There's a lot to improve on, after all, it's just the first day.

Bus route to and from the terminal.