Scenario Description

Policy 1. “Wearing safety helmet when driving motorcycles”.

- In 1995, there is the first regulation of ―wearing safety helmets when driving motorcycles‖ in Decision 36/CP of the government. There is no regulation on punishment of violation behaviors.

- In 2001, the Ministry of Transportation releases ―Guidance to wear safety helmets when driving motorcycles‖.

- In 2002, there is an article in Road traffic law stating that ―wearing safety helmets when driving motorcycles is regulated by the government‖.

- In Feb., 2003, the government released an Instruction under Road traffic law stating some road segments which are obligated to ―wear safety helmets when driving motorcycles‖.

- In Dec. 2005, they issue the Decision regulating the punishment of ―driving motorcycles without a safety helmet‖ (punishment by cash and motorcycle captures).

- In 2006, starting to examine and conduct punishments.

- During the time (from 1995), they release education and training on the policy.

- On June 29th, 2007, the government issues Decision 32/2007/NQ-CP. There is a regulation that

―From September 15, 2007, it is obligated to wear safety helmets when driving motorcycles in all national roads‖ and ―From December 15, 2007, it is obligated to wear safety helmets when driving motorcycles in all types of roads‖.

Policy 2. “Lane separations for different types of vehicles”. The policy is applied firstly at specific intersections (in one road line), then in some specific road lines (so-called standard traffic roads). In schedule, it is supposed to conduct in several roads in the whole city. However, standard roads still do not have good results then the policy needs some adjustments.

- In early 2005: The first road of Kim Ma - Cau Giay started to conduct lane separation for different types of vehicles. The separation was conducted by continuous lane marks in some obligated segments. Other segments in the road are marked just by dash marks.

- Feb. 4, 2007: The road of Chua Boc – Thai Ha applies lane separation in the area of intersections and their approaching roads. The infrastructure is improved by reducing the area of roadside to broaden the road area for vehicles, and intersection areas; lane marking; changing traffic signals from two-phase cycles into three-phase cycle (one intersection got the four-phase cycle to completely separate potential conflicting movements); promotion in mass media; one month of high enforcement with the appearance of policemen (no punishment by cash).

- March 2007: the four-phase cycle at the intersection of Chua Boc - Thai Ha was removed.

- Jan. 20, 2008: applying lane separation in the whole road of Dai Co Viet - Tran Khat Chan: traffic signals, hard lane separation (in some segments), lane markings (with symbols and writing on the road surface), and promotion in mass media and traffic signs.

- Feb. 28, 2008: starting to make punishment on violation behaviors with money.

- August 2008: lane separation by painting columns (instead of lane markings only).

- Feb. 2009: providing five additional locations of policemen (near intersections) to instruct drivers obeying the regulation of lane separating and punish those road users violating the regulations.

Evaluation and assessment

In October 2006, Project Management Committee (PMC) of Traffic Safety Human Resource Development project in Hanoi (TRAHUD) was full-fledged formed by Ha Noi People Committee (HPC).

This project is exertion of cooperation between Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), and Ha Noi city‘s administration in order to improve the Hanoians social awareness of traffic safety.

In Feb 2007, the model road project of Thai Ha-Chua Boc, which the first phase of the program had done, the improvement was carried out wholly in cooperation of traffic safety equipments, traffic safety constructions, traffic safety policies, and traffic safety educations. After nearly one year of new assignment, Vietnamese and especially Hanoians were impressed by the well-done improvement of society awareness, driving skills and traffic participating behaviours shown by series of transport safety data. The result of this phase strongly expresses the active effects and the need to widen the model program in the next phase applied on three National Roads, and Thai Ha-Chua Boc street.

Based on the purposes of survey locations, one field survey has been released to have quantitative data in each location in three periods of time: before, during, and after new assignment (See details from field survey location in the Annex).

The results of two surveys can be summarized as follows (based on the report of Traffic Engineering Evaluation, by TRAHUD study system, 2008).

Policy of wearing helmet (Policy 1)

- Before the last Decision in December 2007, the percentage of drivers wearing safety helmets are low in national highways (the lowest percentage of 9,75% is in National highway No.1 in the afternoon). Motorcyclists give out many reasons for their violation behaviours such as inconvenience, limitation of visibility, hot weather, inconvenience to keep the helmet after reaching the destination, there are only obligation in some roads that they do not know where; low and irregular punishment, etc.

- After the Decision issues, the percentage increase up to 95% motorcyclists wearing safety helmets on average. The lowest percentage can be found also in the afternoon at the rank of 92,12% (also in National highway No.1).

- The percentage of obeying the policy is even higher after the enforcement campaign than those during the campaign.

Policy 2 of lane separation has obtained initial achievements.

In the road segment:

 Separation activity increase the average travel speed in Dai Co Viet-Tran Khat Chan corridor so that decrease the travel time and make road users more comfortable when drive in this corridor;

 Lane separating make the traffic flow more stable due to decrease of traffic vehicle lane changing percentage, this is a positive effect to traffic safety;

 Separating by type of traffic vehicle make the traffic flow more uniform, the traffic flow is prevented from harmful factors due to the reaction between different type of vehicle with different traffic characteristic within the traffic flow;

 Increase the road capacity due to increase the travel speed and making the traffic flow more uniform.

Issue:

 Drivers just obey the lane separation when there are policemen.

 Lane separating by type of vehicle increase the number of conflict at intersection area so increase the risk of local congestion at intersection area; lane separating by type of vehicle could be use in a case of low traffic volume;

 The increase the number of conflict at intersection increase waiting time and travel time at intersection;

 High density of connections with main corridor decrease the effect of lane separation;

 Unbalanced traffic volume distribution on lanes in peak hour sometimes ―forces‖ road users make lane violation.

After a period of applying the policy of hard lane separation (in order to encourage road users to obey road traffic rules), we can see the following situations such as:

Figure 40. Illustration for behaviours of violating the regulation of „lane separation”

At intersections:

 The violation rate (number of violations/total volume of movements) seems to reduce during the campaign, then raise up again after the campaign.

 The campaign seems to have different effects on different types of violation (lane/traffic signal violation). Speaking clearer, after the campaign, the rate of traffic signal violation has a significant reduction, while rate of lane violation has the increasing trend after the campaign.

 The influence depends on different time during a day (peak and off-peak hours, morning and afternoon- peak hours)

[TRAHUD study team, 2008, Traffic Engineering Evaluation]

However, as we can see from the field survey (manual counting), it is obvious that the effects of enforcement (policemen´s campaign) and engineering measurements are not the same (or at least similar trend) to the violation behaviours of all groups of drivers (motorcycles, car, bicycles, etc.). Risk analysis approach with the help of the model describing the driver behaviour chain provide a supporting tool to analyse more deeply different aspects of enforcement effectiveness.