Thaned Satiennam

A Study on the Introduction of Bus Rapid Transit System in Asian Developing Cities: A Case Study on Bangkok Metropolitan Administration Project

Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) has increasingly become an attractive urban transit alternative in many Asian developing cities due to its cost-effective and flexible implementation. However, it still seems to be difficult to introduce BRT to these cities because almost all of their city structures have been developed under solely a road transport development city plan and weakness of land use control gives rise to many problems, such as urban sprawl, traffic congestion, and air pollution. The purpose of this study was to introduce several strategies to support BRT implementation in Asian developing cities, such as a strategy to appropriately integrate the paratransit system into BRT system as being a feeder along a BRT corridor to supply demand. These proposed strategies were evaluated by applying demand forecasting and emission models to the BRT project plan of Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) in Thailand. It was demonstrated that the proposed strategies could effectively improve the BRT ridership, traffic conditions, and air pollution emission of the entire system in Bangkok. This study could be further extended to include strategy recommendation if a BRT system were to be introduced to other Asian developing cities.

TRAFFIC ACCIDENTS IN THAILAND

This paper presents an overview of traffic accident situations in Thailand. It highlights the transformation of road accident problems in Thailand, from the past to present, with the focus on the situation of the most accident prone mode of transport in the country, motorcycle accidents. Relating problems and contributing causes of motorcycle accidents are also detailed in this paper. Subsequently, this paper recommends several measures to curb the alarming increases in motorcycle accidents.

Motorcycle On-Road Driving Parameters Influencing Fuel Consumption and Emissions on Congested Signalized Urban Corridor

This study aims to find the on-road driving parameters influencing fuel consumption and emissions of motorcycle driving on a congested signalized urban corridor. A motorcycle onboard measurement system was developed to measure instantaneously and continuously record on-road driving data, including speed-time profile, emissions, and fuel consumption, by the second. The test motorcycles were driven by 30 sample motorcyclists on a signalized urban corridor in Khon Kaen City, Thailand, to collect their on-road driving behavior during the morning peak period. Cluster analysis was applied to analyze collected driving data and to categorize the drivers by level of fuel consumption and on-road driver behavior. The on-road driving parameter influencing fuel consumption and emissions was then determined. Results revealed that proportion of idle time significantly influenced fuel consumption and emissions of motorcycle driving on a congested signalized urban corridor, though aggressive driving behavior, hard acceleration and deceleration, did not have the same kind of influence.

Potential performance of urban land use and transport strategies in reducing greenhouse gas emissions: Khon Kaen case study, Thailand

ABSTRACT Transport activities are a key contributor to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, global warming, and climate change. In Thailand, private cars are the second largest generator (after trucks) of GHG emissions from the transport sector. This article presents an analysis and evaluation of the implementation of land use and transport measures for reducing GHG emissions in the road network of the Khon Kaen University (KKU) area in Khon Kaen, Thailand. This research applied a bottom-up method to estimate the baseline GHG emissions for several scenarios by adopting the Clean Development Mechanism 2 (CDM2) and Pollution Control Department (PCD) methods over a 20-year planning horizon. The cleaner technology strategy clearly showed the greatest performance in reducing the GHG emission, followed by land use planning and restriction of private vehicle usage. The public transit improvement strategy illustrated the least GHG emissions reduction. Integrated scenarios clearly illustrated larger potential benefits, more effective than the individual scenarios. For both individual and integrated scenarios, the potential performances of the GHG emissions reduction estimated by the PCD method were greater than those assessed by the CDM2 method.

Development of on Board Motorcycle System to Measure on Road Driving Pattern

This study developed an onboard system to measure on road driving pattern for a motorcycle. The main components of the developed system consist of a magnetic wheel speed sensor for measuring speed of the motorcycle and a data logger. The developed data logger consists of a microcontroller, memory storage and data display panel for processing and recording the on road speed-time data. The developed system was validated to measure and correctly record speed per time interval. The developed onboard system will be applied by installing on driven motorcycles for recording a speed-time data that will be used to develop the motorcycle driving cycle.

Effects of Speed Bumps and Humps on Motorcycle Speed Profiles

In developed countries, the use of speed humps and bumps have evolved from extensive research and testing which been properly designed and standardized. On the contrary in developing countries, no systematic and scientific studies have been carried out on that environment, especially the study on the effects that the motorcyclists response to the humps and bumps. This study therefore reveals the riders behavior when negotiating their speed to the devices. A case study was conducted in the provincial cities of Thailand where the motorcycle was a major mode of transportation. Six locations with speed humps and bumps were selected. Vehicles passing times were simultaneously recorded at 12 points along each traffic calmed link. From these data, a speed profile for each individual vehicle and for a link could be derived. It is found that speed humps and bumps have critically different impacts on motorcycle rider and passenger car driver. The smaller size speed bumps could effectively control the rider speed but have diverse impacts on the driver. These speed differences could post more safety deficiency to the site. The effect of the device on riders behavior, however, is restricted to a short spatial range (about 20-30 m before and after the device). For the speed humps, the motorcycle speeds are quite varied depending mainly on the road terrain. It is found that the motorcyclists have significant lower acceleration rate on the upgrade terrain when compared to the passenger car. Therefore, it is important to take all these rider characteristics into considerations when design the road humps to control vehicle speed in the developing countries.

A Study of Potential Electric Motorcycle Use to Support a Low Carbon Society: Case of a Developing Asian City

The objective of this study is to explore the potential for electric motorcycles to support a developing Asian city to be a low carbon society. The study surveyed the attitudes of motorcyclists to determine the proportion of motorcyclists willing to use an electric motorcycle and also estimated the reduction of CO2 emission from the transport sector in Khon Kaen city, Thailand. The approach Bottom-Up2 by road network with the transport demand forecasting model and emission factors by vehicle type were used to calculate CO2 emissions for each road link. 16% of motorcyclists currently using gasoline motorcycles would be willing to use electric motorcycles in the near future. To evaluate CO2 emission reduction, the future condition with introduced electric motorcycles was compared to the future do-nothing condition in the same future year. The evaluation result reveals that the electric motorcycle introduction could reduce 2.4% of CO2 emitted by the transport sector from the future do-nothing condition.

The determinants of motorcyclists helmet use: Urban arterial road in Khon Kaen City, Thailand

INTRODUCTION Currently, Thailand incurs the highest death toll of motorcyclists in the world. The aim of this study was to explore the factors influencing helmet use of motorcyclists in Khon Kaen City, Thailand by using the Logistic regression analysis. METHOD The samples, consisting of 27,977 riders and 6,947 riding passengers, were collected by CCTV installed at several signalized intersections along urban arterial roads. RESULTS The observation results reveal that only 67% of motorcyclists wore the helmets. The analysis results reveal that the helmet use of motorcyclists was significantly associated with the riding status, number of passengers, apparent age, motorcycle class, time of day, the presence of police booths at intersections and, especially, red light running behavior. The riders tended to wear helmets at 2.7 times higher rates than passengers. Adult motorcyclists tended to wear the helmets at 2.8 times higher rates than children. The motorcyclists riding the motorcycles over 125 cc tended to wear the helmets 1.9 times higher than those riding motorcycles under 125 cc. The motorcyclists riding in the morning and the afternoon tended to wear the helmets 5.0 and 3.8 times higher than in the evening. The motorcyclists riding through intersections with police booths tended to wear the helmets 2.2 times higher than those riding through intersection without police booths. However, the red light running riders intend to wear the helmets 0.6 times less than the legal riders. CONCLUSIONS The outcome of this study could determine the factors influencing motorcyclists helmet use. PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS It will be useful for a development of 100% helmet use program designed to lessen the fatality of motorcyclists along the urban arterial roads.

Automatic helmet-wearing detection for law enforcement using CCTV cameras

The objective of this research is to develop an application for enforcing helmet wearing using CCTV cameras. The developed application aims to help law enforcement by police, and eventually resulting in changing risk behaviours and consequently reducing the number of accidents and its severity. Conceptually, the application software implemented using C++ language and OpenCV library uses two different angle of view CCTV cameras. Video frames recorded by the wide-angle CCTV camera are used to detect motorcyclists. If any motorcyclist without helmet is found, then the zoomed (narrow-angle) CCTV is activated to capture image of the violating motorcyclist and the motorcycle license plate in real time. Captured images are managed by database implemented using MySQL for ticket issuing. The results show that the developed program is able to detect 81% of motorcyclists on various motorcycle types during daytime and night-time. The validation results reveal that the program achieves 74% accuracy in detecting the motorcyclist without helmet.

PW 0609 Effects of a speed camera project by automatic speed enforcement system on an urban arterial road at khonkaen city, thailand

Khon Kaen’s road safety committee implemented the ‘14 km. Safe Drive Corridor’ project in 2016 to reduce the number of traffic accidents by using automatic speed enforcement system. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the project after being implemented in 4 fields including 1. Traffic speed 2. Speed enforcement law 3. Traffic accident and 4. Traffic psychology. Data were collected into two parts that were primary data (spot speed and questionnaire survey) and secondary data (divers’ speed from automatic speed camera system, traffic accident from hospitals and speed tickets from Highway Police). Data of the first to third purposes were analyzed by using before-after analysis for two years. Another purpose was analyzed by using Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) to develop framework of speeding behavior, using the Structural Equation Model which were explained and compared behavioral models for six months. Results indicate that this project has had the desired effect on road users, especially seen in driver’s speed, as average speed (24 hour.) was reduced by around 6%. Number of drivers used speed over 100 km./hr. that reduced around 52%. This project can help Highway Police issue speeding tickets, the rate of which increased around 7 times. Moreover, number of fatality that decreased around 78% for two years. The last results, the speeding behavior models found that Perceive Behavior Control (PBC) factor was the most significant and highly influential factor, while the Subjective Norm factor was a more significant factor after implementation. Moreover, it found that Past Behavior factor was a more significant and help to explain speeding behavior models and had relationship with TPB factors, especially PBC. The final part outcomes could help to understand effects to speeding behaviors. Conclusion, these outcomes prove the usefulness of this project, and would be beneficial for other areas as well.