Sustainable Transportation: Paving a road for better Asia

With a contribution of around five-10 percent in the region’s GDP, the significance of transportation infrastructure for the Asian economy can’t be overlooked. Transportation has its ripple effects across the economy and thus calls for meaningful investments in its sustainability and inclusiveness or else it will continue to be a bottleneck to growth and an impediment to poverty reduction, thus hampering the region’s competitiveness and global reach in the long run.
According to an estimate, approximately 1.18 million deaths occur globally each year due to road accidents. Moreover, transportation is accountable for 80 percent of the air pollution, worldwide. Hence, the transport infrastructure, if continues to be frail, will have awful consequences on the quality of life, economic activities and climate.
Asia, a land of most of the world’s megacities, has seen brisk urbanization over the years with more than a billion people moving towards cities from 1980 to 2010. Yet, another billion natives are expected to be city dwellers by 2040. This will lead to increased purchases of private vehicles, thus further enlarging the predicament. By 2030, it is anticipated that Asia will account for almost half of the world’s 1.5 billion vehicles.
Keeping in view the pace and density of urbanization, ADB estimates an investment requirement of around eight trillion dollars in Asian infrastructure development over the next 10 years.
In the past too, transport has been one of the key sectors of ADB operations with transportation lending accounting for around 32 percent of ADB’s total lending. Hitherto, ADB has invested 35.6 billion dollars in Asian infrastructures development with another 3.5 billion dollars investment in pipeline for 2012-13.
According to an ADB report, the first rung towards the vision of sustainable transportation is to address the issue of rapid motorisation by substituting it with public transport systems. Augmented motorisation is the ultimate root cause of road congestion and pollution. Thus, ADB aims at replacing them with proficient and user-friendly rail based and public transport systems. The programme is already instigated with metro rail lines in Vietnam and bus rapid transit systems in Bangladesh and PRC.
Another step on the boulevard of a sound transport system is the provision for non-motorized transport (NMT) infrastructure such as pedestrian zones and walkways, alienated lanes for cycles, pedicabs and other human-powered vehicles. ADB pilot project of NMT is already launched in Indonesia, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, and the Philippines.
Simultaneously with public transport and NMT, the transport plans must also take into account demand management horizon so as to put brakes on traffic congestion and improve traffic streams. The demand management spectrum may range from easy alternatives such as charging for vehicle licenses and parking fees, to more advanced options such as road-pricing schemes.
Besides this, an integrated transportation system should be launched to provide a holistic solution to all the transport problems. The plan would include initiatives such as limiting public transport trip lengths, making certain transport modes exclusive for specific areas, increase average bus speed, shorten average travel time, incentivizing public to use sustainable modes by charging nominal fee etc.
Forging towards the execution side of the plan, the ADB proposes that it should not be government alone, longing and striving for the attainment of a flawless transport system. Rather, there must be a set of partners including public, private, local and global entities together attempting to make out ways that are environmentally beneficial, socially reasonable and financially viable.
On global front, the six major development banks together with UN-ESCAP are geared up to partner the nations in their endeavors on how to best bank on the transportation system to build a road to a dazzling future.