Urban Transportation in Asian Countries Misao Sugawara

1. Introduction congestion and air pollution that are fullest extent for urban transporta- growing more serious year-by-year. tion (Figure 1). Large cities in Asia have unique The problems are so bad that they are Various traffic management means transport problems. Traffic manage- affecting economic and social func- have been introduced in some coun- ment alone is limited in solving the tions, and the people face an urgent tries to solve the problem of surface problems of urban transportation, need to improve their urban transpor- congestion. However, as experienced and introduction of guided transit tation systems. in Bangkok and other large cities, systems separate from ground-level Large cities in East Asia have their such means alone have limits (Photo transport is essential in solving these own unique transport problems. In 1). problems. This article describes some many cities, a large number of ve- Consequently, many countries want of the recent measures, including fi- hicles of sizes between buses and to introduce guided transport that is nance resources, taken to solve Asian taxis operate for public use. There are separate from surface traffic. How- urban transportation problems. also many motorcycles and bicycles. ever, in reality, such a solution is not The advance of motorisation in However, there are not many guided easy because of financing. Japan has many large cities in the developing transit systems, and even when they provided cooperation, including vari- countries of Asia is creating traffic do exist, they are not used to their ous forms of economic and technical

Figure 1 Traffic Share by Transportation Mode in Large Cities

Population City (million)*1 Traffic Share by Transport Mode Remarks

Tokyo 8.1 • 23 Wards (1989)

Osaka 2.6 • Traffic share in1989

Nagoya 2.1 • Traffic share in1989

• Share of each mode based on statistics for 1983 and 1989 Paris 2.1 • Flow within Paris and between Paris and suburbs for one day • Inflow to CBD (Central Business District) New York 7.3 for one day (1989) • Commuter to central London for peak London 6.8 hours (1989) • Population: Greater London

Cairo 8.3 • Cairo residents (1987)

• Population: Calcutta/Howrah Municipal Calcutta 4.1 Corporation (1981) • Between Calcutta and Howrah (1984)

Lahore 3.9 • Lahore residents (1990)

• Within Jabotabek and between Jakarta Jakarta 7.9 and Jabotebek • Population: BMA (Bangkok Metropolitan Bangkok 5.7 Area) (1981) • Within BMA and between BMA and Suburb

Legend Railway/Subway Bus Taxi Private Car Taxi + Private Car Others*2 Private Car + Others

*1 Urban population *2 Foot, bicycle, motor cycle, rickshow, etc.

Photo 2 Motor cycles Bangkok (Author) use of existing public transportation systems and adequate traffic management. In terms of capacity, safety, envi- ronmental issues, and energy con- sumption, it is important to induce passengers to use large- or medium- scale public transportation facilities such as railways, trams, and buses in municipal areas as much as possible. The following need doing to achieve Photo 1 Traffic Jam in Bangkok (Author) this goal: cooperation, for urban transportation 2. Improving existing 1. Elevation of the functions of public in Asia. The present situation of ur- transportation and traffic transportation facilities such as ban transportation in Asia and recent railways and buses efforts to solve the various problems management 2. Easier change-over between rail are described below. (1) General ways and buses The first solution to transportation 3. Controls on passenger cars problems in urban areas is the further 4. New fare systems to encourage use

Table 1 Classification of Cities with Full-scale Rapid Transit Systems GNP per Capita: US$ Population: Millions Population 10.0 or more 7.5~10.0 5.0~7.5 3.0~5.0 2.0~3.0 1.5~2.0 1.0~1.5 0.5~1.0 GNP per Capita

20,000 or more Tokyo Chicago Philadelphia Boston Cleveland Sapporo Kobe Oslo New York San Francisco Washington Atlanta Hamburg Kyoto Yokohama Baltimore Fukuoka Berlin Osaka Sendai Nagoya Munich Stockholm Nurenburg Helsinki 15,000~20,000 Paris Toronto Vienna Milan Lyons Montreal Roma Lille Marseille Rotterdam Brussels Amsterdam Newcastle Naples 10,000~15,000 London Hong Kong Glasgow Singapore 5,000~10,000 Athens Madrid Barcelona 2,500~5,000 San Paulo Seoul Rio de Janeiro Caracas Lisbon Pusan 1,500~2,500 Buenos Aires Santiago Mexico City 1,000~1,500 500~1,000 Cairo 250~500 Beijing Calcutta Tientsin Shanghai 250 or less

24 Japan Railway & Transport Review / March 1995 Copyright © 1995 EJRCF. All rights reserved. Photo 3 Subway in Singapore - Platform at Orchard Station (Author) Photo 5 Light Rail Transit in Manila (Author)

of public transportation as in advanced countries, and build- them (Photo 3). 5. Provision of information about using subways is essential in these cit- An 88-km long rapid transit system ing public transportation ies. The newly-industrialising econo- network has been decided in Taiwan, On the other hand, there is great mies (NIEs) like Singapore, Hong and the first 23-km portion (Tamshui demand for door-to-door transport Kong, and Korea already have mod- Line) is scheduled for opening and people want to own automobiles. ern subways and many people use verysoon (Figure 2). In countries where private car owner- ship is difficult, people are relying on Figure 2 Rapid Transit System Network in Taipei Metropolitan Area motorcycles at an increasing rate (Photo 2).

(2) Use of trains and subways The basic solution to transport problems in big cities is to persuade commuters to use large- and medium- capacity public transport. But guided transit systems are scarce in the developing countries in Asia. If there are any at all, they are rarely used for urban transport. Table 1 lists cities with full-scale transit systems and classifies them by population and per capita GNP. The per capita GNP is low in China, India, and other highly-populated countries. However, the economic ac- tivity in large cities is almost as brisk

Photo 4 Track Elevation Work in Jakarta (Author)

day. In April 1992, the city introduced Figure 3 Typical Cross Section of Hopewell Project a law prohibiting automobiles from those roads from 06:30 to 10:00, un- less containing three or more persons. As a result, the congestion on the Thamrin and Sudirman streets was alleviated to some extent, but neighbouring roads became more crowded.

(4) Changeover between trains and buses The line density of railways is small because of their large capacity. There- fore, it is important to integrate feeder services to use the railways more efficiently. In other countries, efforts are being stage. The urban planning in Singapore made to use the existing national rail- took the form of first building ways for urban transportation. For (3) Traffic management and regu- densely-inhabited new towns along example, Indonesia is converting the lation of automobiles the major roads and then allocating a 160km portion of its national railways The most common methods of traf- bus terminal at an effective point in in and out of Jakarta into a double- fic management are exclusive lanes each of them. Feeder buses were in- track electrified railway including a and preferential lanes for buses. One- troduced within the new towns to 9-km long elevated section as part of a way traffic and reversible lanes are carry people to the bus terminal, and plan to improve urban transportation also effectively used in some places. regular buses were used to carry them (Photo 4). Singapore has a unique toll on pas- on from the bus terminal to the busi- Similar plans are being proposed in senger cars entering the downtown ness center of the city. The regular Kuala Lumpur. In addition to having area. The number of passenger cars buses in the integrated transporta- a double-track electrified railway, increased drastically during tion system were later replaced by the Malaysia plans to build a light rail Singapore's economic development, subway completed in 1987. The sub- network in five directions, using in creating terrible traffic jams. To solve way stations are conveniently con- some cases the existing right of way of the problem, the government intro- nected to the bus terminals. The new the Malayan Railway. Construction duced tolls to control passenger cars system in Singapore is considered an work is under way on some parts. entering the city as early as the excellent model of a transportation In Bangkok where traffic conges- 1970s. system integrating subway and bus tion is rapidly increasy. A new project When the toll was first introduced, services. was approved in November 1990 to passenger cars with four or more Integration between trains and use land owned by the State Railway people were allowed to enter the city buses is also a main theme in the pro- of Thailand (SRT) to build elevated freely, but those with three or fewer posed railroad improvement project railways thereby building new urban people were forced to pay a toll . The in Indonesia for the metropolitan railways and expressways as a unit. control was made even stricter in Jakarta area. The SRT has railways in four direc- 1988. Today, all cars, whether pas- tions leaving Central Station, and senger cars or taxis, must pay $3 they are building four-level elevated (US$ 2.40) per car and attach the re- 3. New transit systems in structures. The third level will be ceipt (permit) to the windscreen be- used by new urban railways next to fore entering the business center in Asia the state railways while the fourth the city. This method of traffic control Introduction of new transit systems level will be used by expressways. The is called area licensing. is needed in Asia to improve urban first and second levels will house Malaysia has a more total urban transportation. The new transit sys- stores and other commercial outlets. policy. Passenger cars entering the tems found in Japanese cities are not This large government project was business center in Kuala Lumpur popular in other Asian countries be- awarded to a private enterprise called must pay a special fee according to a cause of financing difficulties. In- Hopewell (Figure 3). payment schedule that varies by area stead, they are relying more on light Thailand is also undertaking the and time. rail systems. Tanayon Project and Sky Train In Indonesia, the Thamrin and Project involving new elevated rail- Sudirman streets running approxi- (1) Light rail transit systems ways. A new subway system has been mately north-south in the centre of In most cases, "light rail transit" is announced but is still in the planning Jakarta are crowded throughout the a general term used to describe im-

26 Japan Railway & Transport Review / March 1995 Copyright © 1995 EJRCF. All rights reserved. trolley buses are popular in Dalien. In The railroad museum in Delhi has a addition, this city is considering intro- display of a monorail pulled by a ducing a variety of medium-capacity steam locomotive. It was built in 1908 guided transit systems and LRTs to in Patiala State for transporting agri- increase the track transport capacity cultural products (tea). in the urban area and connect it with There are two types of monorail: the other areas designated for new eco- straddled, and the suspended types. nomic and technological development. Monorails have long been used in Thailand has a number of urban amusement parks and the like, but Photo 6 Monorail on Sentosa Island in railway construction projects to re- use as a means of urban transport is Singapore (Author) duce the road congestion in city cen- quite rare. The few examples include ters. Elevated LRTs are included in the suspended monorails in proved trams featuring greater ease two projects over the most crowded Wuppertal and Dortmund Germany, of riding, better comfort, lighter roads in city centers. and the straddled monorails in Se- weight, energy saving, higher power, attle in the USA. and lower noise, etc. They may be (2) Monorails In Japan, straddled monorails are single cars, articulated cars, or trains Monorails are often considered a in operation in Haneda, Kitakyushu, consisting of two or more cars and modern means of transport. However, Osaka, etc., and suspended monorails they run on rails on ordinary roads or their history dates back to 1824 when are in use in Shonan and Chiba. A on separate roads. the first monorail was built in London new straddled monorail system is now The light rail transit system built in for carrying cargo on a pier. under construction in Tama near To- Manila in 1984 is an elevated railway completely separate from surface traffic. It is called Light Rail Transit Figure 4 Rapid Transit System Network in Manila (LRT) because it is smaller, lighter, and higher performance than conventional trains (Photo 5). The (LRT) running north to south through Manila City is an elevated 15-km railway. It was opened in 1984 and carries about 300,000 passengers daily. A new plan is now under way to build a second line crossing the existing LRT and a third loop line con- nected to the existing LRT at both ends (Figure 4). A similar LRT was built in 1988 in the Tunmen area (population 600,000) 25 km northwest of the centre of Hong Kong. It has six lines with a total service distance of 23.3 km on flat surfaces. There are 41 stations, 200 to 300 m apart in the central part of the city. The system has a mini- mum curve radius of 20 m and can run along existing roads. In this re- gard, the LRT system in Hong Kong may be considered a high-performance tram system. China already has large-scale subways in large cities like Beijing, Tientsin, and Shanghai. LRTs are planned in many other largeChinese cities. Chongqing and Harbin plan to introduce LRTs using the existing un- derground paths running in a grid- like pattern. Conventional trams, buses, and

broader sense of the word, it also refers to light rail transit systems men- tioned earlier and small subways. However, the medium-capacity transportation system discussed here is a system running on rubber tyres to minimise noise and vibration problems for the people along the line even when it is installed in central areas of cities. This type of system is in operation in Japan at eight locations. They are equipped with ATC, ATO and other operation systems designed to enhance safety while reducing labour. Since such systems are designed for completely automatic operation, they are unjustifiable in countries where the labor cost is low. Photo 7 Elevated Structure for Medium-scale Guided Transit in Taipei City - Mucha Line - Among the proposed rapid transit (Author) systems in Taipei, Taiwan, the kyo. transportation capable of carrying French VAL type has been chosen for But monorails are very rare in other 8,000 to 20,000 passengers per hour the Mucha line (between Sungshan Asian countries, with a few excep- (one way) during rush hours. In the Airport and Taipei Zoo) where the tions including one for tourists on Sentosa Island in Singapore (Photo Figure 5 Flow Chart of Finance Resources for Railway Project Integrated with 6). Urban Development A 3.6-km monorail was completed in 1988 in Sydney to connect the city center and redevelopment projects in the harbor area in a loop. This monorail is a straddled single line system . It is a one-way (counter clockwise), automatic, seven-car train that can carry around 5,000 persons per hour at 2-minute intervals during peak hours. China must be the most eager country to introduce monorails. More than a dozen cities in China have ex- pressed a desire to build monorails as the means of urban transportation. Chongqing became the first among them to have a concrete plan for building a monorail system. Chongqing has a population of 1.6 Table 2 Example of Results of Economic and Financial Evaluation on Rapid million living in the city itself and a Transit System Projects in Developing Countries total of 14.7 million including the people around it. It has undulating City*1 System Length Forecasted Traffic Demand EIRR*2 FIRR*3 (km) (1000 Persons/day) (%) (%) topography making a monorail more appropriate than other means of A Subway 13.5 1,000 8.7 1.1 transportation. A feasibility study was conducted by the Japan Interna- B MRT (Elevated) 14.2 200 9.2 4.3 tional Cooperation Agency (JICA). C Railway (Surface) 30.0 90 16.4 5.7

(3) Medium-capacity guided D Monorail 17.4 640 12.2 3.8

transit system *1: A,B,C and D have been used for actual city names to maintain confidentiality. A medium-capacity guided transit *2: Economic Internal Rate of Return. system generally refers to means of *3: Financial Internal Rate of Return.

28 Japan Railway & Transport Review / March 1995 Copyright © 1995 EJRCF. All rights reserved. 4. Methods of introducing This method has been used in some motorway construction projects railroads and rail transit (Photo 8). If it were applied to railway systems in large cities in construction, it would be most impor- Asia tant to make certain that the enterprise has the right to make decisions (1) General about fares. At the same time, options Many countries have plans to intro- for future development of areas along duce guided transit systems to solve the railway, investment and subsidies their urban transportation problems. from the government, and all other However, despite the very strong de- items that need to be guaranteed by Photo 8 Expressway in and around Bangkok sire for such installation projects, the government, must be clarified. (Author) they are often left unmaintained or are postponed, particularly in devel- traffic demand is relatively low. This (3) Integration between railway oping countries. The main reason is line has almost been completed and is construction and urban devel- low profitability. scheduled for commercial operation in opment Profitability of urban transporta- the near future (Photo 7). If a guided transit system is to be tion is often low mainly because of the used, a number of items must be large fluctuation in demand and be- (4) Dual mode buses implemented. First, the project must cause the fares must be kept low too One of the important requirements be closely integrated with urban (Table 2). for transportation is continuity of ser- plans. Then, sufficient demand must Since urban transportation is es- vice. A dual-mode bus is in use in be secured by ensuring continuity sential to the daily life and the eco- Adelaide City in Australia. It runs at through some sort of connection with nomic activities of a city, the different fast speeds between two cities. But other means of transportation in means are normally operated by pub- once in the cities at both ends of the terms of facilities and fare systems. It lic subsidies. line, it slows down and runs as an or- is also important to keep the construc- However, in developing countries, it dinary bus collecting and distributing tion costs as low as possible. is often hard to source subsidies for passengers. It runs just like an ordi- If the development of the areas construction of urban transit systems, nary bus in the city centre, but after along the guided transit is done suc- and the necessary funds must be leaving the busy area, it runs at a cessfully as an integrated project, found somewhere else. speed of 100 km/h on slightly elevated profits from the development may be tracks to a suburban new town. Small used to cover the cost of constructing (2) BOT System horizontal wheels acting as sensors and maintaining the new guided tran- In some countries, the national in- are fitted at the bottom at both sides sit. It is extremely important to estab- frastructure is being built and oper- of the car and they automatically lish such a system (Figure 5). ated by businesses from more ad- steer the car's axle. While running I have participated in economic and vanced countries and the resulting along the high speed section, all the financial feasibility studies for inte- service is used to enhance the eco- bus operator does is use the accelera- grated projects involving urban devel- nomic level of the people. Since the fa- tor and brakes. opment and construction of transit fa- cility is built (B) and operated (O) by a This type of bus is outstanding be cilities in the metropolitan areas in foreign business and is then trans- cause it carries passengers from one Jakarta in Indonesia and Bangkok in ferred (T) to the beneficiary country city to another at fast speeds, without Thailand. If these projects prove suc- after a certain period of time (30 the need for passengers to change the cessful, they will certainly present years, for example), this increasingly transportation means at bus termi- one effective method for solving urban popular method is called the BOT sys- nals. transportation problems in develop- tem. In Japan, installation of a similar ing countries. I rail-bus system is scheduled for sub- Such a method allows a developing urban commuting areas in Nagoya. country to achieve urban develop- Such a system was once planned for ment with out spending its own Thamrin Street in Jakarta but the money. plan was later cancelled, most prob- ably due to the conclusion that a full- Misao Sugawara scale railroad or subway was needed on such a trunk road. Dr Sugawara was born in 1927 and joined the Japanese National Railways after graduating in civil engineering from the University of Tokyo in 1949. As a renowned scholar and author of many books dealing with transportation issues, he plays an important role on various government advisory councils and local public bodies. He has been a professor of transport planning at the Tokyo Institute of Technology and the Science University of Tokyo, as well as a board mem- ber of JNR. As president of the Japan Railway Technical Service (JARTS) from 1988 to 1993, he led technical cooperation activities with South East Asian countries.