[sustran] Motorcycles and sustainabile transport in the Third World

[eric.britton at ecoplan.org]

Time flies but most of the real problems of day to day life in Third World
cities remain there, well entrenched and for the most part seemingly
resistant to either understanding or change.  The following essay was
contributed to a virtual conference we organized back in the summer of 1997
under the rubric of "The Zero Emissions Strategy Conference"
(http://www.the-commons.org/zero-ems/). Written by Madhav Govind Badami, at
the time a Doctoral Candidate of the School of Community and Regional
Planning, University of British Columbia - badami at unixg.ubc.ca. Along with
that submitted today by our host Paul Barter, it represents a useful step in
the direction of the challenge of targeting a sustainable transportation
vision and toolkit that can be appropriate to the special circumstances of
Third World cities.

eb

For the Zero Emissions Targeting Conference, The Commons, Monday, 11 August
1997
Zero Emissions Realities in a Diverse and Conflicted World
The Very Ordinary Problem of Motorcycles in Cities
Motorcycles (and more generally, motorized two-wheeled vehicles) are a
serious problem in Asian cities. I know India (and within India, Delhi)
best, so I will use these as examples to make my comments and argue my
points.
Motorized two-wheeled vehicles are the fastest growing vehicle type, and
account for 60 % of all motor vehicles nationally. Incidentally, India has
the world's largest population of this type of vehicle. In Delhi, there are
as many as 1.8 million motorized two-wheeled vehicles, comprising around 66
% of the city's motor vehicle fleet (I estimate this works out to approx.
150 vehicles per 1000 persons). This number is expected to rise to approx. 3
millions, or 85 % of all motor vehicles, in the not distant future. In
addition to their numbers, these vehicles are used intensively, accounting
for over 60 % of total motor vehicle kilometers in Delhi.

Motorization has many impacts, but in terms of human health, perhaps the
most important are rapidly deteriorating air quality and road accidents. In
Delhi, motor vehicles already account for 60 % of total anthropogenic air
pollutant emissions. While motor vehicles are pre-dominant in terms of
Delhi's air pollution, motorized two-wheeled vehicles, the majority of which
are powered by highly polluting and fuel-inefficient two-stroke engines,
account for 45-75 % of total carbon monoxide, hydrocarbon and particulate
emissions from all motor vehicles in that city. Their contribution is
marginal only in terms of nitrogen and sulfur oxides, for which buses and
other diesel vehicles are primarily responsible. This situation is due to
their very high emissions per vehicle-kilometer, combined with the fact that
they account for only 16 % of total passenger-kilometers in motor vehicles.

Thus, these vehicles represent the most serious problem in terms of
emissions per passenger-kilometer. The impacts, including poor air quality,
affect all but likely hit the poor the hardest. They are typically the most
exposed to and affected by polluted air, accidents and loss of access and
mobility (because they more often than not live in high traffic areas and
are pedestrians and cyclists. They are also the least able to cope with
impacts, because of poor access to quality health care. The very poor enjoy
few of the benefits, while bearing the brunt of the impacts, of
motorization. So, there are significant equity impacts in addition to health
and welfare ones due to motorization.

It is often suggested that motorcycles can be seen as a solution. I would
not call them that, if by "solution" one means a consciously chosen answer
to a problem. But they certainly are a great way to get around, given the
circumstances. For large numbers of the not-so-poor, for whom cars are out
of reach, and public transit increasingly unavailable or inconvenient and
time-consuming, they offer excellent mobility at a not unreasonable price,
and thus easy access to essential services, in a situation in which that
access is becoming increasingly compromised (due to motorization !). Their
benefits include door-to-door capability and low parking space requirements.
And though they contribute to congestion, they can cope with it as perhaps
no other motorized mode can, because of their size and maneuverability.
Consequently, they are likely competitive with cars and buses over
considerable distances.

No wonder these vehicles account for 60 % of all registered motor vehicles
in India. Ironically then, while motorized two-wheeled vehicles create
impacts that affect the poor the most, large numbers of low- and
middle-income people benefit from their use. And policies to address their
impacts can hurt low-income groups.

In this regard, consider an emissions-reduction policy that dramatically
raises vehicle purchasing and/or operating costs for low-income persons
forced to live far away from their places of work (because of low rent
affordability) in areas not served or poorly served by transit, and with no
travel options other than their motorized two-wheeled vehicles. Thus, as
Paul Barter of Sustran points out, the public policy challenge is, how to
address their impacts, while minimizing policy impacts on low-income users.

Policies must also be selected for long-term effectiveness, low cost and
easy administration. And because motorized two-wheeled vehicles provide
significant benefits, we must, if we wish to wean users away from them,
attempt to preserve their benefits by other means. Thus, restricting their
ownership and use without providing viable options, such as accessible,
frequent, convenient and affordable public transit service, would be to put
users to considerable hardship.

Having laid the ground rules, as it were, for selecting policies to control
motorized two-wheeled vehicle impacts, let us consider some that are
targeted at their air pollutant emissions.

a) Four-stroke engines would significantly reduce exhaust hydrocarbon and
particulate levels and improve fuel efficiency. But, compared to
two-strokes, they have more moving parts, are much larger and heavier for
the same power output, and are more expensive. This is precisely why
two-strokes are preferred for small motorized two-wheeled vehicles such as
scooters and motorcycles -- they are simple in design, have a high
power/swept volume and power/weight ratio, are relatively inexpensive, and
easy to own, operate and maintain. Advanced two-strokes with timed fuel
injection and crankcase lubrication would have similar emissions and fuel
efficiency effects as four-strokes, while sacrificing only some of the
two-stroke's advantages. But both four-stroke and advanced two-stroke
machines will be more complex and expensive to own and maintain than
straight two-strokes.

b) Catalytic converters: if these were fitted on current two-stroke
vehicles, they would likely not last very long -- the very high exhaust
hydrocarbon levels would burn at very high temperatures in the converter,
resulting in heat damage to the catalyst. Also, lubricating oil would coat
the catalyst, rendering it ineffective. Catalytic converters on current
two-stroke machines may thus end up costing a lot, with little or no benefit
in terms of pollution reduction. To be truly effective, catalytic converters
need precise air-fuel ratio control, crankcase lubrication, and timed fuel
injection, all of which would add considerably to complexity and cost. They
also require lead-free fuel, because lead is a catalytic poison. While
unleaded gasoline has recently been introduced in the major metropolises
including Delhi, Indian gasoline outside these areas continues to be leaded.

Now let us assume that new vehicle emission standards requiring
four-stroke/advanced two-stroke/catalytic conversion are mandated, and
production of two-strokes halted, from (let us say), the year 2000. Let us
make the further (reasonable) assumption that vehicles with these
technologies will be considerably more expensive than currently available
equivalent two-strokes. Apart from the technical problems raised: only those
who can afford it will scrap their existing two-strokes as planned, and
replace them with new technology vehicles. But many others will likely delay
scrapping their old, highly polluting vehicles even longer than they would
have, had two-strokes been still around. This will likely result in
increased emissions neutralizing gains due to the new technology vehicles
that did get purchased. And many more who just could not afford the
increased price, and large numbers who currently depend on 50 cc two-stroke
mopeds would either be left high and dry without any viable alternatives, or
be hit severely economically if they were forced to purchase these expensive
vehicles.

On the other hand, if prices were maintained, things would be a bit better
in terms of emissions reduction as well as equity (50 cc users would still
be affected). But in any case, fleet-wide emissions improvements would still
take a long time, given the low scrappage rates typical in India.

The purpose of the foregoing is not to suggest that improved vehicle
technologies are unnecessary, only to point out potential problems. Whether
we consider vehicle technology improvements or not, we need to think of
cost-effective solutions that will kick in right away. One such is fuel
quality improvement in terms of, for example, lead removal and volatility
reduction (for evaporative emissions control). Evaporative emissions, which
are rich in reactive hydrocarbons responsible for ozone formation (along
with nitrogen oxides), can be as high as 20 % of total hydrocarbon emissions
in vehicles without emission controls, particularly in hot climates like
India's. Fuel quality improvements, and lubricating oil quality improvements
(for particulate control), would not be inexpensive, and would produce lower
per-vehicle emission reductions than vehicle improvements. However, unlike
new vehicle emission standards which can take a long time to be effective,
fuel and lubricating oil quality improvements can start reducing emissions
(and improve fuel economy) in all vehicles in-use and the fuel-distribution
system as soon as they are introduced.

In conclusion: motorcycles indeed are a serious problem, and their impacts
should be controlled. However, as I have argued, we must consider the equity
impacts of policies. Quite apart from the issues raised, technological
measures to reduce per-vehicle fuel consumption and emissions can be
neutralized by increases in vehicle-kilometers and trips (Delhi's population
is expected to increase to around 13 millions by 2000). If we want to reduce
motorized two-wheeled vehicle ownership, use and emissions while maintaining
access and mobility for the masses, we should provide viable alternatives.
We need to enable people to do most of their business on foot or bicycle by
pro-actively planning for non-motorized modes. We must certainly augment
public transit service, but the allocations required are massive, and the
available funds meager. The bottom line: there are no easy solutions !

Organizers' Note: This presentation by Mr. Madhav Badami was invited not
only because it offers a fine overview of one of the myriad problems of
daily life that in their totality make up our present non-sustainable, high
emissions world, but also because we are eager that the conference hear from
younger people and those from the developing nations. All too often our
preoccupations as researchers and policy makers fixate on those advanced
economies that we know best. And of course one of the most important single
barriers to international negotiations concerning pollution of all sorts is
precisely because the 'first world' is simply neither well enough informed
about Third World realties and opinions, nor sufficiently sympathetic to
them. We would like also to express our thanks to the Sustran group in
South-East Asia for making this author's work known to us, and for those of
you with special transport interests we can strongly recommend their
informative and provocative (and free) on-going discussion group (details
available from Paul Barter at tkpb at barter.pc.my). We look forward to your
comments on this presentation.