It is my big honor to give you a keynote speech at the beginning of this important seminar about transportation in Ha Noi. Actually, this is my forth time visiting Ha Noi and I love this city because you have many lakes, many big, beautiful trees and attractive and traditional old city which can attract and is still attracting tourists and many people from abroad. And Ha Noi is not a too large city and it is quite promising to make this city more and more attractive from the viewpoint of environment protection and traffic congestion or any other things. I think you can be proud of this capital city and it is also interesting matter that I could find the beautiful and good bus transportation that was introduced 2 years ago. Yesterday morning, I tried to ride this bus system number 32, 2 and 29 and I am quite satisfied. 3 or 4 years ago, I visited here to give you also a speech on urban transportation, where I suggested that you need a good bus system and I am very happy to find you are now challenging and trying to develop this. But at the same time, I found this magazine with an article about air pollution in large cities in Vietnam and it said, from the viewpoint of foreigners, the air pollution provided by motorcycles, motorbikes are incredible. Still the air pollution provided by motorcycles will be one of the dimensioning factors for the city of Ha Noi. Today, I'd like to show some discussions about what Ha Noi should be for the future and what will be the key point of the discussions for the transportation in the future.

Of course the facilities and the system and the performances of urban transportation have close relationship with many functions of the cities like productivity in the city or the people's lives in the city. So therefore, we have to design the transportation system very carefully, considering about many factors of the city life. For example, we can see many factors like this: here, agglomeration economies, environmental pollutions or living conditions, road traffic congestion or traffic accidents. If you look at these factors and if you can carefully design the transportation system, I am sure that your transportation system will give your city the good condition of the living and the good condition for economy. But at the same time, I must say that so many cities in the world have been looking after what US has been doing until now.

When you look at the development of motorization and the use of the public transit in US cities, of course there are several exceptional cases like New York, Chicago, or San Francisco, but in most cities, you can see very significant tendency from 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, motorization has been developing rapidly and due to this movement, the public transportation has been reduced towards the minus little by little and you can see in many cities that most of the people are using just their own car without having any good transportation means like public transit, like bus system or railway transit. There's a very significant relationship between many factors which is called the retaliation of public transit and the increase of motorization. If once motorization is happening, people want to use their own car and motorization will be increasing. And then the structure of the city or form of the city will become to a city in which you can survive just using your own car. That means the density of the city will be becoming shallow and shallow and the size of the city will is becoming larger and larger. We call this movement sprawling and if one sprawling is happening, the public transit will decline because public transit means density and if you ensure the density of passengers for public transit, this public transit can be financially profitable and economically efficient. So the public transit can survive. But if not, public transit must become declining. And once public transit becomes declining, the people have to depend on the use of private cars. And this will cause more and more motorization. This is something we call motorization spiral and we have to cut the link of these motorization spiral somewhere.

I already show several typical examples of private-car-based cities in America. In some large cities in US, they develop the suburban areas without any constraints. So you will find from above the outskirts of the cities have been developed until the line of the mountain and you will find so many residents there and they are all spreading and having low density. That means you have to use the private cars. And you need very big expressways and roads, of course this is inevitable, but I don't think this large area of road is suitable for the city or not.

Also in the city centre, you need many streets, big and wide streets and parking lots. In Los Angeles, perhaps you know the area which is required for the roads and parking places is now 70% of the land. That means remaining 30% of the land can be used for the houses, commercial places, offices, and so on... so 70-30, do you think it's a good balance or not? I think it's not.

And even if you have a good enough road facility infrastructure, but if you leave the people to use their own car as much as they want, still you will have congestion. And this problem, motorization pilot congestion problem is the one which most of the large cities in the world have been facing and have been tackling to survive or to avoid; some of the large cities have been successful but others are still not.

This figure shows the relationship between people's income and car ownership. As income increases, car ownership increase and it is inevitable and not a bad thing. But you will see American's large cities here and you will find the European and the Japanese large cities here. The car ownership is a little bit different and this little difference gives you a very big difference in the urban transportation. In Germany, France, Netherlands, Japan, Belgium or other cities, the car ownership is a little bit smaller because they have good public transit system. And the form of the city is very different from American large cities. We call it something like compact cities, having the densely inhabited area in the centre and having the corridors with densely used facilities like resident, sometimes commercial and so on... And along this corridor you have good public transit system. So the air pollution or environmental pollution is comparatively lower than that of the cities dependent on private car use.

This is the typical time series of motorization and public transit system in Japan. We develop the urban public transit system before we faced the increase of motorization. At least in the large cities we have subway system or rail system or sometimes bus system. And we could enjoy the public transit, even after the motorization. But the situation in Asia is quite different so we have to try a different thing from what we did in Japan. And also in some large cities in Europe they have the same situation and they have good transit system. And from the viewpoint of global environment, we have to control the emission of carbon dioxide and in order to reduce the emission of CO₂, we have to shift the use of private vehicle into the public transit.

So we have many kinds of urban public transit system from the large ones to the small ones from mass rapid transit, it is mostly the railway, and light rail transit and rubber tire system or automated guide way system and bus way system or ordinary bus system or sometimes paratransit system.

And the difference of the size, different of the system, gives you the difference of the performances: capacity, speed, flexibility and reliability. And we have to choose the suitable system for the suitable market. So if you misuse the system, we cannot enjoy the performance of a good urban public transit. And the good combination of the different systems is also a very important matter. So I will repeat: we have to chose the good urban system considering about the size of the city and also the form of the city. And at the same time, we have to control the size of the city or the form of the city depending on what transit system will be chosen.

This shall be development of motorization and public transit system in Asian cities. From 1970s, most of the large cities in Asia have been facing a serious increase of the motorization and some of the Asian large cities have been trying to construct and develop a public transit system like in Seoul, Hong Kong, Singapore which are not already developed countries of course and Taipei, Manila, Bangkok are now tackling. And Seoul, Hong Kong, Singapore have been trying many things quite earlier, while Manila, Bangkok are just now studying, especially Bangkok has jus started. And important point of the motorization in Asian countries or Asian large cities is that you sometimes have motorization twice. First motorization is by motorcycles and second motorization will be using private cars. And of course the second motorization is much more serious than the first one. But one of the point of the first motorization is that people have already known the use of private vehicle or the convenience of private vehicles, so if you are going to tackle the public transit, you have to make your public transit much more useful, much more attractive and smart than the use of motorcycles. That is the point.

I will show several examples of the public transit systems which were already completed in Asian cities. This shows the light rail transit in Manila, which was open in late 1990s and this was constructed using the elevated trucks and this is separated from the surface road transportation and it gives you a good transportation means.

And Bangkok is a very well-know notorious city of having a very heavy traffic jam. And you will find that their traffic jam is already by private cars. They pass the first stage of motorization. And they have been suffering from the serious air pollution as well as the serious congestion. So they developed the skyway system which is also a kind of light rail transit and was constructed on elevated trucks. And it is a quite smart and somewhat quite expensive for the low people, but still you will find so many people are using this and you can be quite rapid moving from place to place. I don't know if this system is suited for Ha Noi or not.

This is the scene captured 2 years ago in Ha Noi and still you have the problem of motorbikes. And I will show a good example of the city of Taipei, which face the very serious or much more serious problem of motorbikes many years ago. This is the scene of Taipei - the difference of Taipei with Ha Noi is that they are using helmets. This is of course inevitable to avoid the traffic accident. And they developed a very good bus transit system having exclusive bus ways. You will find the shade here in order to avoid sunshine and you will find a very large figure here - the destination and number and this is very rapid. They have exclusive bus way like this. You will find the signs like this one which shows this traffic lane is just for buses. And using this bus transit system, the travel time is quite reliable. And they also have a commuter railway system MRT - mass rapid transit and in some of the lines, they constructed elevated trucks in the suburbs. This is one station and this shows the structure of this station provide you a very traditional atmosphere or cultural atmosphere of the Taiwan people. And under elevated trucks you will find "garden" or "parks" or "working place". And in the city centre, these lines are underground they will not destroy the landscape of the city and they will not cause traffic jams. And also they have guided transit system in the city centre. So I can conclude here that people in Taiwan have been tackling motorbikes problem from various viewpoints: using bus, using light rails, using mass rapid transit. So the important point is the mixed use or a very good combination of these things or step-wise approach. And also now, they don't stop the using of motorbikes. There idea is to combine the reasonable use of motorbikes and reasonable introduction of the public transit. So they are now posing to manage motorbikes in an orderly way. You will find the guidance for blind people and Taiwan people are good enough to keep the space for the pedestrians very orderly.

So I will move to the several suggestions for Ha Noi or Vietnam. The first "master plan of integrated urban public transit system", second "multi-modal approach", third "step-wise approach", fourth "early acquisition of right of way" or lands for trucks and "land use control" and "financing schemes". I will explain them briefly one by one.

Firstly about master plan of urban public transit system. Perhaps this is inevitable to say the scientific approach is important to construct master plan. Of course we need a political will, but just political will will not persuade the people and the economic size. So we need a scientific approach and strong will of the policy. Second, almost the transportation in urban area or city are consist of many things, not just with the public transit, not just with private cars but with working with bicycles, many things almost have to be considered together. And third, we have to corporate with other policy aspect together with transportation. For example, land use policy or taxation polity in the city or security system coordinated with the police system and commercial policy or tourism policy also. Finally, periodical revision is of course inevitable and monitoring system is also inevitable.

Second is multi-modal approach. We have to use the multi-dimensional transport models very cleverly. The first is hierarchical use of urban public transit system. The suitable system has to be suitably used in appropriate ways. This figure shows the image of the hierarchical use of the urban public transit system. You have trunk lines, corridors, and you have distributors, you have circular system, you have feeder service like this. And we have to assign the suitable system to the suitable place. The second point is intermodal facilities. If you'd like to use the public transit system, the most important point is the connection or the transfer in between public transit system, in between public transit system and private system. That means we need a good combination with personal modes like motorbikes or bicycles. And also transport demand management is inevitable matter to make the good urban public transit system.

So I will show several examples which I think have very clever ideas. Perhaps most of you know some examples of these cities. The first slide shows bus way system in Ottawa in Canada. Ottawa is the capital Canada but it's not very large city. And even if it's very small, they constructed 3 exclusive bus way systems. Bus ways is just for public buses. And you have the traffic lanes - one and two about and down bound, you have all the stations and you will find bus is there. And travel speed of buses on this bus way system is about 70 km or more so you can commute from suburban residential areas to the city center very rapidly. It is much faster than using the private car because the general road which is for the general use is always crowded, so you have to spend your time in the congestion. But once you use public buses on the bus way system, you can arrive at the city center very fast. And you will find the densely constructed or residential area along these exclusive bus ways, so this is corridor type city perhaps. And they have several very big terminals here and there where you can transfer middle distance luggage bus with the local bus system without any extra charge. This is very good or beautifully designed facilities. And in the city center, bus ways will be connected to the ordinary network of road and they are providing exclusive bus lanes in the city center so still the buses can run comparatively faster than the private cars. And I find so many passengers are using these bus way systems.

And other example is about guided bus system which is started in Essen in Germany and also in Japan's Nagoya and also in Adelaide in Australia. This is German case. They constructed this guide way system both ways in between traffic lanes in express ways. And these buses have some special equipment and these buses can be driven without any steering and these buses can drive on general roads after finishing these special guide ways. In other rail, their traveling speed is 100km per hour. It is very nice.

And even if we use the ordinary bus, the identity of the bus is very important. Color or sign system are very important. For example, in this example, this is bus in Netherlands and they have several types of buses or bus routes with different colors, for example white for the city center, red for long distance, etc. And design of vehicle is also very important so that the passengers will be proud of using that. Passengers will have to see that bus is very smart. This is a very smart design of bus stops in Sydney, Australia. I think this one of the most beautiful bus stop in the world. This is constructed and designed by the very good architect in Australia using the glass and steel and gives the idea that buses are very smart in Sydney.

And apart from buses, we also have several very light transit systems. We have been thinking that monorail is a middle capacity system, but in Sydney or Australia, their system is really light system. And the shape of this structure is very shallow and smart, so it will be fitted for this kind of urban landscape sometimes. And the transportation demand management is inevitable as I mentioned. And Singapore is one of best example of transportation demand management. They have been introducing the aerial licensing system many years and they have already introduced the electronic road pricing so this is the thing we must not forget. And also the bus lanes in the expressways are very important. In Seoul, you will find this system in expressways, motorways. This is the lane, this is the expressway to the Seoul city. In the evening or Sunday, it is very crowded. So many cars are in congestions, but the public bus can drive freely and most people can ride the public transit system, even on the expressway. But the important point is that you need three traffic lanes.

And step-wise approach to define a goal is also a practical matter. Even if you have good target, high target, ideal target, it is sometimes not practical. You cannot be there forever. So you have to improve your system by step-wise approach. It says long-term goal is inevitable because sometimes step wise network expansion is suitable. And another idea of step-wise approach is step-wise system evolution. Firstly perhaps you will construct bus way system, and if traffic demand is increasing in the future, you can change it to the system with much more capacity. This is step-wise system evolution approach - bus, high rail bus, and then light rail transit and heavy rail or something.

And after the observation of several buses the day before yesterday, I'd like to give you some comments and tips for the bus system. One is you need a user-oriented level of service management for some major routes. You have major routes like No32, No1 and 2, etc. If you can introduce monitoring system or evaluation system of the people's preferences of the buses, you can control the demand, you can control the fare very cleverly. And then perhaps you need time-dependent exclusive bus-lane somewhere. It is strongly recommended. And also priority traffic signal control system is also suitable if the traffic demand is getting bigger.

And finally anti-"broken window effect", I don't know if you know the word "broken window effect" written here, it is developed in US about the way to avoid or eliminate the criminal. If your window is broken or if your wall is dirty with graffiti, people think that this place is not under very big watch or guard. So people tend to make little crimes and little crimes will provide the habit of crimes like robberies, or the murder. So the city of New York starts to eliminate or wash the walls of the subway vehicles to get off the graffiti and it will give them the very good atmosphere in the vehicles of the subways and also the station and the city and it will decrease the number of light crimes and also finally they could decrease the number of heavy crimes. So it is somewhat related to the bus system in Ha Noi. At this moment, you have just introduced the new bus, new vehicle of buses. They are not dirty and quite convenient with air-conditioners. But if once you leave the vehicles without washing, without any repair, it will become dirty and maybe people will feel that this is not smart, this is not suitable for the middle, it is somewhat unsecured so perhaps you will lose the ridership. So I recommend you to avoid "broken window effect". Please keep your system as clean as possible.

Land use control is quite important and the city structure policy or site development policy have to be quite closely related to the transportation policy. Perhaps you know the word of transit-oriented development which is I think very important and inevitably necessary matter to make your transit system better. And also enforcement of the land use control has to be strong one. Maybe the things happened in Curitiba - Brazil have been very well-known in people here but please allow me to show some. This shows the Curitiba large articulated bus. The capacity of this bus is more than 200 people, so it is already not very light transit but middle capacity transit. So if possible, you can use this. And also important and attractive point of Curitiba's bus system is that they are using a special bus stop like this. The people have to pay the fare here and wait there and ride the bus on the flat base so the buses don't have to stop long. Inside, the atmosphere is not very bad but I don't know if it is suited for the cities in Asia because the sunshine of climate and temperature is much higher here. But anyway, please look at they are trying challenging many things.

Financing scheme must be the thing that has to be discussed indeed. Maybe you need huge tax, specially year mark for the improvement of the transportation system. Private and public partnership is also important matter. And combination with outside development is also important so that transportation business can get the money from the site development. And also the site development, well coordinated with the transportation investment will give your more passenger ridership.

So this shows the final overall suggestions. This is not very specific but I'd like to show you several very fundamental ideas or very fundamental features which are very inevitable for a good transportation planning. Firstly, strong will of the ministries or the People's Committee or the people themselves. If you have strong will, you will get your target. But if your will is weak and not unified, you cannot get the good answer. So strong will is the first one.

And second point is selected but integrated approach. If you are going to invest many things with some little money, your fruit from your investment will be very limited. I hope your concentrate your money on some specific routes or some specific matters so that you can get your fruit and once you get your fruit, you can step up to other places. This is I say selected but integrated approach.

The third one is practical and outcome-oriented policies. Practical means not just theoretical. Theoretical is good but if it is not practical, it's nothing. And outcome-oriented policy is very important. Sometimes some Government tends to make the targets just as making or investing something, but the important matter is outcome, for example, reducing the carbon dioxide emission percentage by 10% or 20% or reducing traffic accidents by a half or 10% or something. This is outcome-oriented policies.

And finally marketing and involvement of the people is quite inevitable. If your Government is supported by the general people or general passengers, you will be realized, but if you don't listen to the people's opinion or people's behavior, your policies will be just theoretical. Thank you.

I am showing some pictures again about land use control. In Curitiba, what is important is not just about their buses, not just about their bus stops but the city's structure policy. In Curitiba, they have finger policy - 5 fingers and they are concentrating the density of the city onto these corridors, so the private sector can develop houses or commercial facilities or the offices along these corridors. And in between these corridors, density of the land use is strongly controlled. And therefore, when you travel along the corridors, you will find the bus here, but you will find very big buildings along these corridors. And apart from these corridors, you will find low density districts with greens and so on.

And this is the landscape of Toronto in Canada and this is also well-known city of transit oriented development city. You will find the corridor here, this city uses the subway system so you cannot find the vehicles but underground they have the subway and they are permitting the tall buildings along the corridors and they are controlling the land use in between the corridors so you can imagine the image of the corridor.

I will show another example of the combination of the land use and the transit system. This is the example of Thiemann in Hong Kong. This light rail system is connecting the commercial town and the fairly terminal from which you can travel to the city centre of Victoria, ...and ... and in between these two terminals, they have constructed tall residential buildings, apartment houses and most of the people living in these high buildings are using these transit system for their commuting and shopping. The network of this system is quite extensive and you have main lines, sub lines and roof line likes this. The atmosphere of the residential is like this, you have trucks, light rails and buildings and greens and children can enjoy the life of this place without any air pollution.

And in the terminal, they have many tracks for lighting. You will find vehicles and this is the platform and even this small child can walk without any traffic accident fear. And over this terminal, they constructed this residential houses and shopping stores. So this is some kind of a terminal base transit oriented development (TBOD).

OK. Thank you very much for listening to my presentation.