Citation

Bell DD, Kuranami C. Transp. Res. Rec. 1994; 1441: 93.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1994, Transportation Research Board, National Research Council, National Academy of Sciences USA, Publisher SAGE Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Vietnam and Cambodia, two of the poorest countries in Asia, are currently undergoing accelerated changes in their domestic economies. Vietnam has been moving toward a free-market system since the collapse of communism in the former Soviet Union, and Cambodia experienced an economic surge from the recent presence of 22,000 United Nations personnel involved in a comprehensive peacekeeping mission. A rapid increase in the number and use of motor vehicles (MVs), especially motorbikes, has accompanied these developments and contributed to significant deterioration in traffic safety and congestion. The capital cities of Hanoi and Phnom Penh are major activity centers whose residents traditionally have depended on nonmotorized vehicles (NMVs), especially bicycles and cyclos (pedicabs), for performing functions vital to maintaining their livelihoods. Although economic conditions in these countries have encouraged rapid motorization, roadside traffic counts in mid-1992 showed that NMVs still accounted for 50 to 70% of all vehicle volumes in these two cities. Local government officials, however, have expressed views hostile toward NMVs, and in Hanoi plans have been made to abolish all NMVs from operating within the city by the year 2004. Officials in Hanoi and Phnom Penh should take a more balanced approach to transport planning by including needs of NMV users with those of MV users. Not only would affordable NMV facility improvements, such as the provision of spatial and temporal separation measures, ensure that all residents, including the poor, maintain reasonable access, but they would probably improve citywide traffic safety and congestion as well.

Language: en