[sustran] Re: Motorcycles and sustainabile transport in the Third World

[SUSTRAN Resource Centre]

At 12:26 11/04/00 +0200, Eric Britton wrote:
>The motorcycle side of things is certainly a monster problem area when it
>comes to making transport in cities sustainable in which the twain most
>definitely does not meet. And furthermore, it is one to which I think we
>have not yet seen enough focused attention in policy and practice circles.
>At least not on this side of the world.

In my thesis and several other writings I also urge more attention to
questions about motorcycles.  There is an urgent need for a wide-ranging
debate on the role of motorcycles in Asian cities and the implications for
the poor and for future policy options. 

Small motorcycles are now within the reach of a surprisingly high
percentage of households even in low-income Asian cities, such as Ho Chi
Minh City where it was estimated that by 1996 about 80 to 90% of households
had access to at least one motorcycle and public transport use has dropped
to only 2% of mechanised trips (MVA Consultancy, 1997). 

Motorcycles are problematic in many ways but do provide relatively
affordable mobility. 
So what is an appropriate and equitable policy, taking into account long
term synergies with public transport and with urban land-use patterns?
Would a policy of gradual restraint of motorcycle use have a
disproportionate impact upon the urban poor?
---------------------------


Here is some further discussion of motorcycles based on material from my
thesis:

ON HIGH MOTORCYCLE OWNERSHIP AS A NEW AND UNPRECEDENTED THING
... Urban motorcycles ownership rates of over 150 motorcycles per 1000
persons are unique to Asia and are unprecedented. Countries that now have
particularly large numbers of motorcycles include Taiwan, Thailand,
Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and India. Although
motorcycles are also becoming significant in some western African
countries, no other region of the world has such high levels of motorcycle
ownership (Flood, 1997). Because such high ownership of motorcycles in
cities is a new development, the understanding of its implications and
appropriate policy responses to it are both poorly developed.....


WHY ARE MOTORCYCLES SO POPULAR IN THESE CITIES?
It had earlier been expected that, as incomes rose beyond
lower-middle-incomes, the proportion of motorcycles relative to cars would
begin to drop (Zahavi, 1976: 18) and this has indeed been happening in
Singapore and Hong Kong. Recent transport studies in Jakarta and Surabaya
cities have continued to predict a decline in the relative importance of
motorcycles (Dorsch Consult et al., 1996b; Dreesbach and Wessels, 1992). 

However, against expectations, motorcycle ownership rates have continued to
increase in congested middle-income cities where public transport options
have been poor and unattractive, such as Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur and Taipei
(Feng, 1994). Taipei is significant here, with income levels much higher
than Bangkok or Kuala Lumpur, but also with higher motorcycle ownership and
an urban fabric that appears to be higher in density than Bangkok's.

Although affordability is clearly an important factor, it is not the only
factor. For many cities it was apparently the affordability of small
motorcycles along with failures in public transport that initially promoted
motorcycle ownership growth. 

However, by the 1990s in upper-middle-income cities such as Bangkok, Taipei
and Kuala Lumpur, spatial issues, such as congestion and parking space
appear to have taken over as the primary impetus for motorcycles' continued
popularity (along with continued poor public transport).  


ON MOTORCYCLES AS A RESPONSE TO CONGESTION AND PARKING PROBLEMS IN DENSE
CITIES:
High motorcycle use may represent a coping mechanism for congested cities
in the face of spatial constraints. A dense city can apparently increase
its private mobility further, faster and more economically with motorcycles
than with cars, without facing such severe spatial constraints. This is
because of the spatial characteristics of motorcycles, particularly the
small motorcycles that are popular in Asia.

Small motorcycles are able to manoeuvre through stalled traffic and to park
in tight spaces and busy areas where car parking is hard to find. The
time-area concept provides an approach that focuses attention on the very
high rate of urban space consumed by private transport modes compared with
public transport (Bruun and Schiller, 1995). It compares not only the road
space used for a trip but also the parking space used, weighted by the
length of time that it is occupied. Motorcycles' use of road space may only
be slightly more efficient than cars but they are very thrifty with parking
space. Since parking space accounts for a large proportion of time-area
consumption by private transport modes, motorcycles consume much less urban
space (in time-area terms) than cars. These observations suggest that the
popularity of motorcycles in middle-income Asian cities may be at least
partly a reaction to high urban densities. Motorcycles appear to serve as
something of a "safety valve" in cities that are facing severe spatial
constraints. 

....motorcycles can also access the alleyways of low-income vernacular
housing areas...


ON MOTORCYCLES AND POOR PUBLIC TRANSPORT:
The rapid influx of motorcycles in many cities may partly be a result of
the inadequacy of public transport. Motorcycles also then play a role in
further threatening the viability of public transport in Asian cities.
Being more affordable than cars, they can begin to do so at lower income
levels than can cars. Furthermore, they can continue to compete with public
transport even in conditions of scarce parking and congested roads where
cars have greater problems. 

In part, the space-saving features of motorcycles allow them to compete
very effectively with public transport for trips to congested centres. For
such trips, their ease of parking and ability to weave between rows of
stationary larger vehicles, mean that motorcycles are better able than cars
to compete with public transport for this particular class of trips. Like
public transport, their cost to users is also comparatively low.
...

MANILA AS EVIDENCE THAT POOR PUBLIC TRANSPORT IS AN IMPORTANT INITIAL
IMPETUS FOR MOTORCYCLES
It is difficult to know exactly why motorcycles have never become popular
in congested Manila....  It seems likely that an important reason may be
the relative success of Manila's economical public transport.   At least
until the early 1990s, Manila's system, dominated by jeepneys, provided a
frequent, plentiful and well-used service that penetrates all areas of the
city with a dense network. Data presented in Chapter 5 showed Manila's
public transport to be much more successful than that of Bangkok, Jakarta,
Surabaya or Kuala Lumpur. 

In contrast, motorcycles have become dominant in Surabaya without any
intervening period of public transport dominance and now account for about
46% of motorised trips (Dorsch Consult et al., 1996b). In Surabaya,
collective transport has apparently never played a major role and as
recently as the 1970s, non-motorised transport accounted for the vast
majority of trips. Motorcycles have also been relatively important in Kuala
Lumpur ever since the early 1970s and public transport has never been the
predominant mode in that city either. 

Another factor in the rise of motorcycles may be a history of high bicycle
use. Many cities where motorcycles have become very numerous previously had
high levels of bicycle use. Examples include Taiwanese cities, Vietnamese
cities, small Indian cities, Malaysian cities, and to a degree, Indonesian
cities. To some extent, this factor may also interact with the lack of
public transport. ...

....
The success of pro-public transport policies in Hong Kong, Singapore, and
Seoul since the early 1970s may also help to explain the lack of popularity
of motorcycles in these cities (although explicit restraint of motorcycle
ownership also played a role in Seoul in the 1960s and 70s and in Hong Kong
since the 1970s).


WHAT NEXT?

In terms of their potential impacts on land use, motorcycles can serve
dispersed urban activity patterns, thus potentially encouraging the
development of a dispersed urban form that is not suited to public
transport. Therefore, although they do not contribute as much to congestion
as cars or use as much energy, motorcycles may be operating as a vanguard
for an explosion in the numbers of cars by encouraging dispersed land-use
patterns. By directly damaging the competitors to cars, they may also be
reducing the capacity of cities to react to this onslaught. 

As for social and environmental impacts, motorcycles are an extremely
dangerous mode and the two-stroke machines that are common in the region
are extremely polluting of the air.  

Such considerations may lead cities in the region to decide to restrain
motorcycles. However, it is not yet clear how this could be most
effectively and fairly achieved.

Perhaps stricter safety enforcement and emissions standards offer potential
methods of gently restraining the popularity of motorcycles while also
tackling two of their worst problems. 

Some might argue that low-emission or electric motorcycles (as are being
developed in Taiwan) could be part of the sustainable transport agenda... 

It is uncertain what the long-term outcomes of these motorcycle trends in
Asia will be and there is an urgent need for further debate on appropriate
policies towards motorcycles. 

... Numerous motorcycles may inadvertently cut off other options. By
competing effectively with public transport, a high role for motorcycles
may tend to make a transit-oriented strategy very difficult for a city.
Will the developing mass transit systems in cities such as Bangkok, Kuala
Lumpur and Taipei suffer from motorcycle competition or will they
eventually provide sufficient improvement to public transport quality to
help halt the increase in motorcycle use? 


I plan to develop upon these observations into a full-length paper on this
issue. So any suggestions and comments are welcome.

Taipei and other Taiwanese cities may be a particularly useful focus for an
investigation of "motorcycle cities" since they are the ones with the
longest history of high motorcycle ownership. 


Paul


A. Rahman Paul BARTER
SUSTRAN Resource Centre
P.O. Box 11501, Kuala Lumpur 50748, Malaysia.
E-mail: sustran at po.jaring.my

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