Organisers of the recently concluded Thailand International Motor Expo are jubilant after receiving bookings for 80,000 cars during the 10 day event. But they could hardly have been surprised by the number of customers. By the time it expires at the end of this month, at least 600,000 new drivers will have taken advantage of the government's tax rebate scheme for first-time car buyers which cuts individual costs by up to 100,000 baht. Perhaps the real surprise for car show organisers will come next year when they find themselves wondering where all the customers have gone. This is a problem that occurs frequently when governments artificially stimulate markets, although it was clearly a risk that auto manufacturers were prepared to take in the wake of losses suffered during last year's floods.
There is no mystery about where all the cars have gone. About 60 per cent have found homes in the provinces, while the proliferation of red number plates on Bangkok streets account for the rest; the sole exception being those repossessed by finance companies. This pushed up the capital's total number of registered cars to a record 7,384,934 on Oct 31. Of these, 296,553 were new automobiles bought under the first car scheme. It comes as no surprise that congestion is visibly worsening throughout the city, especially in the Samsen, Silom and Sathon areas, where many office buildings and schools are located.
Given that Bangkok has a history devoid of proper urban planning, the problem facing traffic experts is how seven million can be accommodated on roads that can only handle 1.6 million. Having 4.4 times more cars than the space available for it is a recipe for gridlock, even if an additional 1,200 vehicles a day were not being added to the mix. It is little wonder that the Land Transport Department keeps running out of number plates or that the bottlenecks are worsening with traffic slowing to an average of 18km/h in the morning and 23km/h in the evening.
It is clear that we cannot go on like this and just wait for everything to finally grind to a halt, a prospect that only cartoonists find amusing. There have been some worthwhile suggestions to change the location of U-turns to ease tailbacks, bring driving tests up to international standards and make more roads one-way. These are band-aid solutions.
More radical proposals are to stagger office and school hours, remove police control of automated traffic lights and impose congestion charges on non-essential vehicles in inner-city areas.
Such measures would take enormous political will to put in place and a commitment by police to enforce them at all times. Those are two reasons why they are unlikely to happen. The same applies to adopting an alternating system whereby only cars with number plates with odd numbers would be permitted on roads one day, while those with even-numbered plates would be allowed the next. Those who are sufficiently well-off can circumvent this by buying a second vehicle; others by trying to bribe traffic police. What is needed is a major cultural shift so that political expediency is not the dominant factor in problem solving.
Traffic planners have to stop living in the last century. If Bangkok is to have a sustainable future, it will come from the increased use of mass transit and by creating more pollution-free pedestrian areas. It will not be achieved by pampering the owners of all the single-occupant cars that clog the streets. As a first step, drivers should be making more use of park-and-ride facilities now that suburban supermarkets have offered to make secure parking space available. That puts the onus on mass transit operators to increase capacity and improve services. No car driver would want to trade the ordeal of traffic jams for that of massive rush hour overcrowding on mass transit systems. But soon they might not have a choice.
The Transport Ministry has already warned everyone in greater Bangkok to expect "nightmare" traffic jams due to the building of seven mass transit rail lines. Those living in the suburbs have been warned to expect to spend four to six hours a day commuting for at least the next two years and possibly longer.
Worsening the traffic snarls has been an apparent decline in driver discipline and an increase in selfishness. There is a strong case for buying more tow trucks, speed cameras, Breathalysers to test for alcohol and wheel clamps to immobilise illegally parked vehicles. Traffic police also need to get tough on red light violations, one-way traffic offences and motorcycles driving on pavements. Positive action such as introducing compulsory driver education programmes for offenders would also help.
Drivers who complain about traffic jams should remember that they are as much a cause for them as anyone. Now they should become part of the solution.