Myanmar : Road Safety for Highway Development in the Greater Mekong Subregion East-West Economic Corridor

Transport / Road transport (non-urban)

The proposed transaction technical assistance (TRTA) will support the Government of Myanmar to develop a systematic and practical approach for road safety in the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) East-West Economic Corridor Bago-Kyaikto existing national highway of about 90 kilometers (km). The TRTA also aims to help the Government to establish initial foundation for a sustainable and systematic road safety regime. The outcome of the proposed project, is more efficient and safer movement of goods and people between Bago and Kyaikto, along the GMS EWEC.

The proposed TRTA is anchored to the proposed GMS: EWEC Highway Development Project that will be designed through the ongoing TA. TA 9314's one key output is to design the ensuing project of a new road alignment of the 70-km New Bago-Kyaikto Highway, deepening the connectivity of the corridor. The TA is included in the proposed Country Operations and Business Plan: Myanmar, 2019-2021.

Based on the latest available road crash data (2013), Myanmar's road fatality rate is the third worst in Southeast Asia, at 20 fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants, which doubled since 2004. Based on the latest data from National Police for 2017 road crash fatalities, when estimated for errors, indicates that the fatality rate is 30. Nearly 60% of road casualties are softer modes: motorcyclists, cyclists, and pedestrians. Female road related fatalities account for 25 percent. As in any country, developed or developing, majority of road fatalities is due to human behavior, not road environment or engineering. Myanmar suffers a loss of 1.5% of its gross domestic product annually due to road crashes.

Ideally, as achieved by developed nations, to change road user behavior, education and enforcement need to be strengthened and sustained over about two decades. However, this faces a severe challenge since such systematic policy has not yet been formulated or implemented. Key issues to be considered for a systematic policy are: (i) inadequate school curriculum on road safety; (ii) lack of road safety programs; (iii) lack of focused education by driving schools to obtain driver license and absence of a streamlined licensing system; (iv) inadequate capacity of police; (v) lack of police force for enforcement thus lack of enforcement; (vi) absence of critical mass of local expertise; (vii) lack of road worthiness testing of vehicles; and (viii) inadequate funding. From a road engineering aspect, expressways and highways are unsafe with no access control; all road users (humans, vehicles), and animals share the road space with limited discipline. To aggravate these challenges, road crash data compiled by the police are only about 30% accurate so effective road safety policies are difficult to be formulated.

The National Road Safety Council (NRSC) was established in 2017 with participation of all key relevant stakeholders like the Ministry of Construction, Ministry of Transport and Communications, National Police, Ministry of Education etc. The NRSC needs capacity improvements to function efficiently and remedy road safety issues Myanmar is facing, in a systematic manner.

Based on the foregoing, the proposed TRTA intends to establish an initial foundation for a systematic approach for practically remedying the road safety issues in Myanmar long term. From a development assistance point of view, the proposed TRTA is timely and useful in filling these gaps to achieve its intended objective.