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Procedia Engineering 142 (2016) 291 – 297

Sustainable Development of Civil, Urban and Transportation Engineering Conference

A Study of Motorcycle Lane Design in Some Asian Countries

To Quyen Lea,*, Zuni Asih Nurhidayatib
a
Faculty of Civil Engineering, Ton Duc Thang University, 19 Nguyen Huu Tho, District 7, Ho Chi Minh City 700000, Vietnam
b
Ministry of Public Works and Housing, Jalan Pattimura No. 20 Kebayoran Baru Jakarta Selatan, Jakarta 12110, Indonesia

Abstract

Some Asian countries are facing up problems in road safety because of the increasing of motorcycle. Aside from its beneficial
function for accessibility, motorcycle has particular issues within road safety framework. As the road safety issues in latest year
are concerning serious problems in terms of motorcycle safety. This paper focuses on issues of motorcycle lane design to be more
sustainable. The paper reviews the relationship between motorcycles and road safety and of motorcycle lane design for road
safety mobility through experimental practices in Taiwan and Malaysia.
© 2016
© 2016TheTheAuthors.
Authors. Published
Published by Elsevier
by Elsevier Ltd. Ltd
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
Peer-review under responsibility of the organizing committee of CUTE 2016.
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of the organizing committee of CUTE 2016

Keywords: motorcycle design; motorcycle lane; motorcycle safety; road safety.

1. Introduction

The motorcycle is one of the main vehicles in urban areas in some Asian countries, such as Taiwan, Malaysia,
Indonesia and Vietnam. Developing countries like Asian is facing up problems in road safety because of the
increasing of motorcycle. Literature review indicated that the vehicle accidents, injured crashes and congestion
caused by the motorcycle. According to statistical data, the economy cost USD11 billion in the year 2000 and 73,000
road deaths and 1.8 million injuries [4]. Due to a huge amount of motorcycle, almost road lane is the mixed traffic
with motorcycle and overloaded infrastructure, in fact that vehicle and motorcycle growth makes worse. The
proportion of two- and three-wheeled vehicles of some Asian members were high as Vietnam (95%), Indonesia
(73%) and Malaysia (49%) [4].
Improving road safety mobility for motorcycle is essential. However, some of Asian countries pay inadequate
attention to safety mobility for motorcycles. This paper focuses on issues of motorcycle lane design to be more

*
Corresponding author. Tel.:+84937031090.
E-mail address: letoquyen@tdt.edu.vn

1877-7058 © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of the organizing committee of CUTE 2016
doi:10.1016/j.proeng.2016.02.044
292 To Quyen Le and Zuni Asih Nurhidayati / Procedia Engineering 142 (2016) 291 – 297

sustainable. The following part will articulate through interpreting the issues, such as the relationship between
motorcycles and road safety and of motorcycle lane design for road safety mobility through experimental practices
in Taiwan and Malaysia. This study is using literature review in which the authors providing the reader information
related to motorcycle lane design in briefly. The study starts from data collection from related paper, document, and
library database to take a holistic point of view at current problems. The reporting review is the result of summaries
regarding the database.
As one of the most affordable travel mode choices, the number of motorcycles is raised each year. However, the
number of motorcycles has tended to differ per capita. The number of motorcycle has decreased in the most
developed countries, such as USA, UK, and Japan, while has increased in the developed and developing countries as
Thailand, Taiwan, and Indonesia. Table 1 shows that there are around 455 million registered motorcycles over the
world in 2010, approximately 69 motorcycles per 1,000 people; whereas the number of cars is about 782 million
cars, or about 118 per 1000 people and Asia is approximately 79% of all vehicles in the world [13].The using
purposes of motorcycles also differ among and between developed and developing countries. Motorcycles are
commonly used for commuting and touring in developed countries, while other especially developing countries used
motorcycle as a mean for goods transport, passenger transport (motorcycle taxi), vending, and delivery.

Table 1. The overall total of registered motorcycles in the world – 2010 [13]

No. Continent/Region Registered Motorcycles Percentage of total Motorcycles per 100 Percentafe of MCs of
motorcycles (%) population all vehicles (%)
(2010)

1 Asia 359,567,713 78.94 100.80 59.35

2 Middle East 13,240,634 2.91 28.35 25.21

3 Europe 38,767,389 8.51 43.90 9.56

4 Africa 7,938,939 1.74 10.35 22.88

5 South America 22,801,731 5.01 58.12 22.54

6 North America 12,395,764 2.72 23.82 3.86

7 Oceania 778,936 0.17 21.80 4.01

Total 455,490,566 100 Word’s rate =68.68 30% of all vehicles

Motorized and non-motorized two wheelers are a major mode of transportation and are expected to go last in next
three decades because: (1) their excellent mobility is effective way in urban local areas, common road width is often
small and narrow; (2) they are inexpensive to own, and costs the lowest to finance, insure, maintain compared to
cars; and (3) motorcycles use land more efficiently than any other motorised transport, occupying less road space
and parking space, in particular approximately 5 to 7 motorcycles can use a single car space.

2. Motorcycles and Road Safety

Aside from its beneficial function for accessibility, motorcycle has particular issues within road safety
framework. Motorcycle casualties, which leads to road accident fatalities are often occurred. Each year, the number
of motorcycles in use is raising significantly, there are about 69 motorcycles per 1,000 people [13]. One of the main
reasons for this scenery is due to the mixed traffic and road design [12]. As the road safety issues in latest year are
 To Quyen Le and Zuni Asih Nurhidayati / Procedia Engineering 142 (2016) 291 – 297 293

concerning serious problems in terms of motorcycle safety, most of transport policies focused on traffic segregation
seldom taken into account to isolating motorcyclist from the mixed traffic.
According to [7], the noticeable motorcycle problems are commonly categorized in five characteristics: (1) agility
in traffic; (2) accessibility and ease of operation; (3) instability; (4) lack of physical protection; and (5) personal
danger. Thus, several road safety action plans regarding those problems are executed, such as providing motorcycle
lane for motorcyclist to reduce the interaction between motorcycles and other vehicles in the mixed traffic. However,
this transport policy should be collaborated with other criteria, such as motorcycle parking, speed limit, and
motorcycle use in particular areas. Supporting policy is also required to equip during the implementation such as
accident information system, driving license management, and vehicle registration [8].

3. Motorcycle Lane Design

3.1. Exclusive Motorcycle Lane

The purpose of exclusive motorcycle lane design is to separate or isolate the motorcycles from mixed traffic. It is
expected to decrease conflict between motorcyclist and the others. Traffic management policies have taken into
account to the motorcycle road safety through the implementation of motorcycle lane design since 1984. A
relatively complete design has been setting for motorcycle lane, such as two-stage left turn waiting zone, motorcycle
waiting zone, motorcycle banned lane, lane markings, etc. Fig.1 shows that the number of motorcycle accidents
caused by motorcycle waiting zone, motorcycle two-stage left turn is decreased until zero.

Fig. 1. Accident location analysis of motorcycle accident in Taiwan 2010-2013 [12]

x Motorcycle Two-stage Left Turn at Intersections, T- Intersections

Fig.2 shows that more than 50% accidents often occur at intersections. The regulations for two-stage turns at
intersections and T- intersections involved in motorcycle turning on the left or right. Two-stage left turn boxes offer
motorcycle a safe way to make left turns at multi-lane signalized intersections or mixed lane intersections from a
right side cycle track or motorcycle lane. For those motorcyclists, who would like to turn left need to stop at left-turn
waiting box and wait there until the traffic light to turn green. Particularly at T-intersections, a two-stage left turn
design for motorcycle is challenge because of the conflicts between left turn and straight moving.
294 To Quyen Le and Zuni Asih Nurhidayati / Procedia Engineering 142 (2016) 291 – 297

Fig. 2. Motorcycle lane design in Tainan City, Taiwan [10] a) Exclusive motorcycle lane; b) Motorcycle waiting area; c) Motorcycle two-stage
left turn waiting area.

x Motorcycle Waiting/Stop Zones

Since 2000, Taiwan has started installing motorcycle waiting/ stop zone in the road where the speed is less than
60 kmh. Motorcyclists may stop in this area when the traffic lights are red and may pass when the lights are green.
The motorcycle waiting zones must be designed with a minimum width of 0.8 meters and length of 2.3 meters for
each turning [3]. Motorcycle waiting has reduced motorcycle accidents at the intersection in exclusive motorcycle
lane (as shown in Fig.2). The application of motorcycle waiting zone was demonstrated to decrease the total time
delay and increase the saturation flow rates of the signalized intersections [12]. Motorcycle waiting area designed
with marking of various direction arrows, such as straight, left-turn, and right-turn.
In Malaysia, an exclusive motorcycle lane commonly has a wide right of way rules, in the range of 2 m to 3.5 m
[6]. As presented in Fig.4 below, a recommended control width is provided.

Fig. 3. Exclusive motorcycle lane in Malaysia [6]

3.2. Non Exclusive Motorcycle Lane

x Lane Markings/ Shading

A vision with road markings could be increased motorcycle safety. In the mixed traffic, motorcycles have tended
to access to other motor lanes during the peak hours although road is installed by lane splitting. Under some
subjective reasons, motorcyclists may be aware that they are accessing intentionally on the car lane or riding at a
high speed. Segregated motorcycle lanes are fully separated from mixed traffic, mainly by painted markings or
shading on the road. Markings may include symbols, words, text, arrows, lines, and other markings that give
direction and attract motorcyclist on visual environment. In Malaysia, markings were proven to be effective way in
reducing speeds approximately a 4.23 km/h reduction in average speeds, a 5 km/h reduction in median speed, and a
3 km/h reduction in 85th percentile speeds [2,6]. Fig.4 describes an inclusive motorcycle lane in Malaysia.
 To Quyen Le and Zuni Asih Nurhidayati / Procedia Engineering 142 (2016) 291 – 297 295

Fig. 4. Nonexclusive motorcycle lane in Malaysia [6].

x Speed limits
The speed limits of motorcycle lanes strongly effected on road safety. However, speed limitation also depends on
the physical characteristics of the roadway, the weather condition, the presence of other vehicles and the specific
road of speed limitations. Motorcycles driving on the nonexclusive lanes should ride at a slow speed, recommended
less than 60 km/h. Motorcycles driving on the exclusive lanes should ride at a high speed more than 60 km/h.

4. Discussions

4.1. Motorcycle Lane Design Evaluation

The need to evaluate motorcycle lane design to increase motorcycle safety is one of the requirement tool
evaluations after several transport policies were launched. Based on current studies [4], there are 3 measurement
types were taken by using digital recording along the exclusive motorcycle path: (1) design motorcycle, (2) space
requirement and (3) riding manner. The result shows that these 3 components have relationship each other. It also
revealed that the ideal lane width must be greater than 1.6 m to accommodate other motorcycle for overtaking along
motorcycle lane. Furthermore, there are several basic features of motorcycle lane according to [9]: (1) track length
(extension); (2) track width; (3) verge; (4) distant from main carriageway; (4) access control; (5) guardrail type; (6)
Wearing Course formulation; (7) road base formulation; and (8) interchange. This evaluation also has a beneficial
effect of creating better driving environments for other road users.
Although human behavior contributes a large part of road casualties, the road infrastructure is a physical
framework to guide road users and be affected on their activities. The consequence of poor design may be harmful
for riders. The serious injury can be occurred due to lack of safety equipment and defective road design and poor
road maintenance such as construction zones, poorly lit corners, excessively high speed limit, inadequate shoulder,
unclear lane markings or turns, narrow roads, potholes, and many other distress types on the road surface and road
side. In line with this, the road design also has a significant role within this part. The motorcycle lane design must be
consider other main factors, the forgiving and self-explanatory road design principle [10]. Within this safe system
principle, the motorcyclist are allowed to make mistakes on roads [10].
Furthermore, the motorcycle lane design also needs to be evaluated through some tools such as simulation. By
examining the lane performance for motorcyclist, it is expected that the risk fatality or serious injury can be avoid
through active safety system. Katagiri et al.[5] assessed this kind of active safety systems such as the lane-keeping-
assistance and collision mitigation system. According to their research, the result of this evaluation using rider-
control-model through computer simulation with the rider in the loop system shows the lane following performance
improvement [5].
296 To Quyen Le and Zuni Asih Nurhidayati / Procedia Engineering 142 (2016) 291 – 297

4.2. Motorcycle Lane Design within Sustainable Urban Mobility

The examples from Taiwan and Malaysia show such a considerable potential implication to be applied in other
Asian Countries to simultaneously improve motorcycle safety, particularly in urban areas. It is important that urban
cities provide such a particular motorcycle lane design to reduce the impact of mixed traffic and motorization. The
reduced number of crash accident will lead to the road safety achievement and in line with sustainable urban form.
However, such improvement by motorcycle lane design is inadequate to gain the goal of sustainable urban mobility
concept. The number of motor vehicle, especially motorcycle should be reduced. The key to achieving this is the
national government policies intervention within transportation planning. National governments should also promote
green transportation as well as one of achievement in sustainable way. Furthermore, non-governmental organization
should collaborate together with funding department to provide technical assistance and financial support for the
government.
Sustainable urban mobility concept is to improve accessibility by providing a sustainable mode of transport such
as promoting the use of bicycle, public transport and other green transportations in urban areas [1]. Motorization
within urban mobility concept in one the barrier that is assessed to be reduced. Thus, urban mobility plan
accommodate the attractiveness of walking and cycling by providing an exclusive lane in a safety way. Moreover,
the improvisation of existing infrastructure to be an attractive, safe and secure path, particularly for cyclist,
pedestrian, and motorcyclist. The development of new road infrastructure should be in line with sustainable urban
mobility principal supported by a good transport policy and soft measures [1].

5. Conclusions

Rapid growth of motorcycle ownership in most of urban Asian countries should be managed by applying
effective motorcycle lane design. Providing some road space allocation for traffic segregation including barriers is
one of effective way for motorcycle safety. By using Taiwan and Malaysia as the lesson learned to reduce traffic
accidents, particularly for motorcyclist, existing roadways can be improved to increase the performance level of its
service. Thus, a better transport infrastructure seen as one of the goals of a sustainable urban mobility which
improves road safety and reduce vulnerability. However, due to the limitation of scientific researches related to
motorcycle lane evaluation, it is recommended in future to generate more research on in the future this field.

Acknowledgements
Best data collection were cited by academic papers, authors, conferences, journals, and organizations, and
record.

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