The freight sector in the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS comprising of Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam) is dominated by road transport that ferries about 80% of all freight tonnage. Aging vehicles, poor fuel efficiency, inefficient fleet management and high operational costs contributed to increased Greenhouse Gas emissions. There was a need to develop an institutional framework in the road freight sector by bundling access to finance and fuel-efficient technologies and building driver and management capacity in an enabling policy environment. Global Best Practice Group’s expert was retained by the Asian Development Bank as a member of a multidisciplinary team to develop pragmatic and implementable pilot projects that have the approval, participation and support of the national governments as well as the freight operator associations and the SME operators. Following a review of the road sector freight scenario and an understanding of the areas of concern specific interventions were proposed for (i) Low Carbon technologies pilot; (ii) Vehicle Upgrade or low-cost loans pilot; (iii) Eco-driving training pilot for freight companies; and (iv) Logistics management pilot to reduce backhaul and increase fleet efficiency.
Consultants
to the Development World ™
