Urban Transport Strategy. Management in Developing Countries John A Cracknell, страница 107

§  to improve the efficient distribution of goods while at the same time ensuring that adverse traffic and environmental impacts of trucks-commercial vehicles is minimised.

Types of Intervention – general traffic management measures which improve traffic flow (junction capacity, removal of bottlenecks etc) will also improve the circulation of trucks-commercial vehicles although of course not necessarily deal with the environmental issues.  Specific traffic management measures aimed at trucks include:

§  the provision of on-street and off-street loading-unloading facilities to ensure that delivery vehicles do not impede traffic flow;

§  designation of trucks routes, together with traffic management measures along those routes, to improve operational efficiency and to protect sensitive areas from trucks;

§  combined truck and bus only lanes have been pursued by some cities but are not to be generally encouraged as (i) the operational characteristics of buses (with regular stops) and trucks (with slow acceleration etc) are incompatible and (ii) if bus volumes are high then trucks will have a negative effect on bus operations and vica-versa;

§  measures to mitigate the environmental impact of trucks such as regulatory controls on area entry by size or by time;

§  provision of truck parks where trucks can wait for short periods of time to (i) break loads and transfer to suitable sized vehicles for use within cities, (ii) to await pre-arranged deliveries and hours at which they are permitted to enter the city.

Inclusion in Bank traffic management projects/component – as far as is known, there are few, if any, specific truck-commercial vehicle traffic management measures in Bank projects.  The one exception is the proposed traffic management scheme to develop a truck route to/from the port in the proposed Manila

UTP.

Lessons – Efficient urban road freight distribution is essential but must be carried out with minimum traffic and environmental impacts.  An urban traffic management truck policy is part of traffic strategy and is likely to involve measures such as truck routes, designated loading areas, break bulk terminals (where appropriate) and “no go” areas for environmental protection.  Specific measures to assist trucks, and to protect the environment and other road users are almost entirely absent from Bank projects.  It is noted that (i) the road freight industry is a private sector operations and care is needed to avoid imposing truck restrictions-facilities which restrict operations to the extent that they are not commercially viable (such as truck terminals which are implemented by cities without recognition of commercial reality) and (ii) truck policy must extend well beyond traffic management to deal with truck loading limits, fuel substitution (diesel-CNG), regulation of the industry (licences, axle load testing, entry to the market etc), terminals etc.

It howevver, clear that “trucks” is a neglected area in traffic and transport projects.

Rationale and Objectives  Walking is an indispensable and integral part of the urban transport system and in developing cities, walking is often a very high percentage of trips, particularly by the poor (see Chapter 7).  People should be able to make walk journeys conveniently, in reasonable comfort and in safety from conflict with road traffic.  The objectives of a pedestrian policy are:

§  to improve pedestrian mobility by the provision of convenient facilities enabling walk journeys to be made without excessive diversion;

§  to improve safety by protecting pedestrians from conflict with vehicles;

§  to improve pedestrian quality and encourage walking by ensuring that footway, road crossing and other facilities are provided, well maintained and unencumbered.