Transport Development in Asian Megacities : A New Perspective

The rapid growth of the Asian urban population concentrates on a few large cities, turning them into giant megacities. Despite new theoretical insights into the benefits of megacities, the emerging Asia is facing a daunting challenge concerning the management of infrastructure and services in their megacities. The deteriorating urban mobility is the most difficult challenge with respect to the sharp increase in vehicle numbers and to inadequate and poorly managed road infrastructure. Public transport, a sustainable mode of mobility, is subjected to a vicious cycle of poor service, decreasing ridership and lower investment. Despite various policy initiatives, the situation has not improved. The scale and growth pattern of Asian megacities have distinctive features which generate a unique set of challenges and opportunities. New perspectives are needed to effectively address the transportation problems making the best use of available opportunities. This book, which is a result of an international collaborative research, addresses these challenges by providing insightful analysis and novel viewpoints.

Shigeru Morichi is currently a senior professor and director of the Policy Research Center at the National Graduate School for Policy Studies (GRIPS) in Tokyo, Japan. He is also a professor emeritus of Tokyo Institute of Technology and the University of Tokyo. In the past, he served as the president of the Japan Society of Highway Engineering, the Japan Society of Civil Engineering, the Eastern Asia Society of Transport Studies (EASTS), and the Institute for Transport Policy Studies (ITPS). He also worked as a visiting fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and a visiting professor at the University of the Philippines. Professor Morichi has over 35 years of experience in transport-related fields, such as transport and spatial development policy, railway network planning, transport modeling, and transport systems analysis. He has led various planning advisory councils in Japan. He also managed several planning and project advisory committees for transport projects sponsored by Japanese ODA. He has authored 47 books and more than 140 academic papers in English and Japanese. He obtained his doctoral degree in engineering from the University of Tokyo.

Surya Raj Acharya is currently a senior research fellow at the Institute for Transport Policy Studies, Tokyo. He has over 23 years of national and international interdisciplinary experience in the area of urban and regional transport planning, infrastructure investment, sustainable development policies, system dynamics, and program and project development, implementation, and evaluation. Dr. Acharya has previously worked for the Government of Nepal, The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), and the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, Bangkok. He teaches graduate-level courses on transport and spatial development policy as a visiting professor at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies, Tokyo. He is also a visiting lecturer at the University of Tokyo. He has published articles in international journals and edited volumes. Dr. Acharya is a civil engineer with a master’s degree in resources management and owns a PhD in infrastructure policy from the University of Tokyo.