Enhancing Regional Freight Connectivity for Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia’s location along major global shipping lanes and growing status as a production and consumption centre has created a surge in demand for international trade. Policy makers in the region have recognised that investing in sustainable and resilient infrastructure will be critical to managing demand growth while delivering on national goals for decarbonisation.
To set the stage for this study, the ITF has published a series of methodology papers that provide policy makers across the globe with the tools to define, measure and enhance the connectivity, decarbonisation, and resilience of freight transport systems.
- Read “Enhancing freight transport connectivity through analytical frameworks” by Dr Ruth Banomyong
- Read “Enhancing freight transport decarbonisation through analytical frameworks” by Dr Alan McKinnon
- Read “Enhancing freight transport resilience through analytical frameworks” by Dr Jasper Verschuur
- Read “Evaluating the relationships between connectivity, decarbonisation, and resilience in freight transport” by Dr Alan McKinnon
Then, to understand the key challenges and opportunities for freight transport in Southeast Asia, the ITF conducted a detailed review of frieght transport policy and infrastructure across the region and surveyed hundreds of local experts. Their responses provide valuable insights for national transport planning.
- Read "Regional freight transport infrastructure and policy in Southeast Asia: An overview" by Dr Atit Tippichai
- Read the analysis of the survey of freight transport experts in Southeast Asia
The remainder of the study focused on analysing and quantifying the potential of ambitious policies and infrastructure investment to enhance the connectivity, decarbonisation, and resilience of the freight transport sector in Southeast Asia. The ITF Global Freight Model was used to forecast transport activity and network performance under alternative scenarios, allowing the study to develop recommendations on closing the potential connectivity and infrastructure gaps and propose policy pathways for enhancing the sustainability and resilience of the freight transport sector in Southeast Asia.
Key findings include:
- To enhance regional freight transport in Southeast Asia, we recommend a multi-dimensional approach that improves connectivity through infrastructure and trade facilitation, accelerates decarbonisation with fuel efficiency regulations and electrification incentives, and strengthens resilience against disruptions by investing in multimodality and alternative routes.
- Policies and infrastructure investments focused on connectivity can reduce the costs of shipping goods from Southeast Asian countries to the rest of the world by up to 20%.
- Although connectivity and decarbonisation are often complementary, a connectivity-based approach alone is not sufficient to achieve regional decarbonisation goals. Additional measures such as incentives for fuel efficiency improvements and electrification are needed to decouple rising demand for freight transport from carbon emissions.
- While certain trade-offs are observed, in general, the ambitious policy measures complement one another, producing a well-integrated regional freight transport system that is more competitive, efficient, environmentally-friendly and adaptable to disruptions.
- Explore the full report below for detailed policy recommendations at the regional level, and specific recommendations for Indonesia, Thailand, and the Philippines.
Read the final project report: Enhancing the connectivity, sustainability, and resilience of regional freight transport in Southeast Asia.
This work is part of the Sustainable Infrastructure Programme in Asia – Transport (SIPA-T) which helps decision-makers in Central and Southeast Asia to identify ways to enhance the efficiency and sustainability of transport networks.