[sustran] Motorcycles and sustainable transport

[Paul Barter]

Dear sustran-discuss friends

I am keen to hear your views about motorcycles. What policies on
motorcycles should sustainable transport advocates be pushing?

At the moment they seem to me to be a big part of the problem for many
Asian cities and towns. But are they potentially part of the solution too?
If Asian cities decided to begin to restrain motorcycles, how could they
best do it? Motorcycle users are generally lower income than car users so
there are big equity issues if motorcycles were restricted more than cars.
Could motorcycles be cleaned up? Can the safety issues be addressed? If the
choice is a flood of cars or a flood of motorcycles then are motorcycles
preferable?

Western experience is probably not much use here. There have never been
this many motorcycles in cities before!  (expect perhaps in southern
Italy???)  Several countries in Asia have the highest rates of motorcycle
ownership in the world!!  For example, most Taiwanese, Malaysian and Thai
cities have more than 200 motorcycles per 1000 people (and even up to 400
in some cities). Indonesian, Vietnamese, and some Indian cities seem to be
following this same trend and many already have more than 100 motorcycles
per 1000 people.

So we have the amazing situation that some large low income cities, such as
Ho Chi Minh city have a very small role for public transport!! Most trips
are on motorcycle or bicycle or foot, with motorcycles increasing all the
time. What is the future scenario for such a city?

SUSTRAN plans to produce educational and promotional materials on various
sustainable transport issues (action guides). But on the issue of
motorcycles, what policies should we be recommending??? The sustainable
transport agenda is well developed for many other issues but not for this
issue.

Best wishes,

A. Rahman Paul Barter
Sustainable Transport Action Network for Asia & the Pacific (SUSTRAN)
<barter at central.murdoch.edu.au>