CALD GETS (SMART) MOVING

East and Southeast Asian cities have been grappling with mobility issues even prior to the pandemic. But with climate change and ever-growing populations, there is even more need for smart solutions that can make public transportation available, affordable, and environmentally acceptable.

In 2022, CALD began its Smart Mobility Project that it envisioned would showcase smart-mobility solutions in the region by extending support to local government units governed by CALD member-parties. Selecting Indonesia, Taiwan, Thailand, and the Philippines as the countries to be included in the project, CALD tapped for participation member-parties Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDIP) and Nation Awakening Party (PKB) of Indonesia, Liberal Party of the Philippines, Democratic Progressive Party of Taiwan, and the Democrat Party Thailand—all of which have elected local governments under their watch.

The project will run until 2024. Its goal for 2022 was to produce a baseline study that would highlight current mobility issues in the region, as well as best practices in addressing those issues. By late December, the baseline study was ready to serve as a smart-mobility roadmap for interested local governments.

The country reports submitted to CALD form the core of the study. Green organization Environman co-founder and content director Romtham Khumnurak wrote the Thai report, while PDIP Foreign Department member Mohammad Yusuf Wuisan, Trenggalek City Mayor H. Mochamad Nur Arifin, and urban planning and public policy expert Dr. Harya S. Dillon took care of Indonesia’s situationer. AltMobility PH Director was the author of the report on the Philippines; for Taiwan, the writing team was the International Division of the Institute for Information Industry’s Ellie Kan, Hansen Derrick, and Tobias Larkin.

Miguel Karlo Abadines of AltMobility PH prepared the baseline study. It includes an analysis of emerging trends and challenges in smart mobility in the region, based on the country reports and the feedback from the participants in the CALD workshops in Tagaytay, Philippines, and Bangkok, Thailand.

Abadines observes in the study, “While Taiwan is very much advanced in its implementation and use of digital technologies, the Philippines is still at the foundational level of fixing the basics of public transportation governance and infrastructure, even as many groups push for active transportation such as biking. For Indonesia and Thailand, foundational concerns in public transportation have partially been addressed; both are now looking at smart-mobility technologies and processes to address gaps in transportation-service delivery.”

“What these case studies show,” he also writes, “is that as the respective governments of these countries attempt to respond to their citizens’ needs and address the concerns and demands for an efficient, safe, inclusive, and accessible transportation system, their struggles vary in forms and degree. Each local context is unique, and thus ap proaches to smart-mo bility implementation have been diverse. Nonetheless, there are some common themes that can be identified based on the four case studies.”

You’ll have to read the study to find out what those common themes—and more—are.