Research conducted by Dr Yen Dan Tong and Dr Julio Mancuso Tradenta from the La Trobe Business School offers new hope for reducing pollution and improving transport policies in developing nations, like Vietnam.
“Air pollution is an ongoing issue in Vietnam. The Vietnamese government has made commitments to reduce traffic congestion and carbon emissions by introducing motorcycle bans by 2030 in four of its major cities,” explains Dr Tong.
“This proposal has been controversial as motorcycles are the primary mode of transport in Vietnam.”
“There was a lack of evidence to show how effective the ban would be in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and that’s what we wanted to find out through our research.”
Dr Yen Dan Tong and Dr Julio Mancuso Tradenta’s research, in collaboration with Can Tho University in Vietnam and the University of Southern Queensland, suggests that the reduction in emissions by substituting motorcycle trips with active travel is significant.
“Active travel is any kind of transport that is based on human physical activity, such as walking or cycling,” says Dr Mancuso Tradenta.
“We used micro data collected in Vietnam during the COVID-19 pandemic to evaluate the potential reduction in greenhouse gas emissions that could be achieved from substituting motorised transportation with walking or cycling.”
This data included activity-based travel diaries that showed each respondent’s total distance travelled and their trip purpose.
“We found that 65 percent of individuals used their motorcycles to travel less than 5 kilometres. If most of these trips were replaced by active travel, 22 percent of greenhouse gas emissions could be reduced,” says Dr Tradenta.
“These are exciting findings that could help to inform the development of improved transport policies that promote active travel in developing nations and, hopefully, can lead to a better environmental future.”
