Getting Smart About Public Transport

In more ways than one, Asia and the Pacific remains to be the fastest growing region in the world. According to the Asian Development Bank (ADB):

• By 2030, more than 55 percent of the population of Asia will be urban;

• Another 1.1 billion people will live in the region’s cities; and

• In many places, cities will merge together to create urban settlements on a scale never seen before—mega-regions, urban corridors, and city-regions will be the new urban configuration.

Given these realities, we should think ahead and plan accordingly so that we can integrate these issues and trends into our national development plans. As the ADB noted, “The prosperity of nations is intimately linked to the prosperity of their cities. No country has ever achieved sustained economic growth or rapid social development without urbanizing.”

A developed city is also a city that moves. It is for this reason that we are focusing on smart mobility in the next two days so that we can share experiences and best practices on how to integrate various elements of technology and mobility in the city’s transportation infrastructure. Our goal is to contribute to the publication of the CALD Smart Mobility Baseline Study, which, we hope, can be useful to our member-parties, especially those with a presence in local governments.

It must be said that the principles and goals of a smart city in general, and of smart mobility in particular, are very much in line with the values of CALD as a liberal and democratic network of political parties. As liberals and democrats, we are the most receptive to change brought about by technological developments. We are also strongly supportive of fundamental human rights, including freedom of movement and the right to travel.

For this reason, in the 2019 elections, part of the Democrat Party of Thailand’s platform of governance was a smart-bus project that hopes to provide Bangkok commuters with 5,000 electric buses in seven years. Another policy was to promote “smart taxis” by legalizing drivers who use personal cars to provide services via ride-hailing mobile apps. The Party also proposed to turn some areas in the city into walking streets for certain periods.

These are just some of the policies that we proposed as a political party. At the end of the day, we believe that every person deserves a safe, convenient, and commuter-centric transportation system. This should not be a privilege; it should be a human right.

Let me end with a reminder on why we are here discussing issues such as smart city or smart mobility. We are doing this because we want a better quality of life for our people. The people, after all, should be front and center in all our efforts to transform our urban areas into cities of the future.