Publication: Safety of Commercial Motorcycles: Guidelines and Good Practices for Governments and the Private Sector
Loading...
Published
2025-09-15
ISSN
Date
2025-09-15
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
The report highlights safety challenges across several areas and ways to address them. Key challenges include the limited availability and affordability of certified helmets, widespread counterfeit gear, and poor public awareness of helmet standards and proper usage. Riders juggling multiple platforms and shifts are more susceptible to fatigue and risky behavior. Motorcycle fleets often rely on vehicles that may not conform to adequate standards, with inconsistent safety features and limited periodic maintenance. Weak insurance enforcement, limited coverage for commercial use, socioeconomic barriers, and limited adoption of telematics to monitor safety performance further hinder safety efforts. For instance, in some countries, low-powered commercial use two-wheelers are exempt from standard two-wheeler regulations. Addressing these challenges is a shared responsibility requiring active participation from the government, companies, riders, and the insurance sector.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“World Bank. 2025. Safety of Commercial Motorcycles: Guidelines and Good Practices for Governments and the Private Sector. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/43726 License: CC BY-NC 3.0 IGO.”
Digital Object Identifier
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Guidelines for Mainstreaming Road Safety in Regional Trade Road Corridors(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-06)The global crisis of road traffic injury is escalating in low-income and middle income countries to devastating effect; with road traffic crashes a leading cause of death. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 1.24 million people were killed on the world's roads in 2010 and between 20-50 million more suffer non-fatal injuries from road traffic collisions each year. Among young people aged 15-44 years, road traffic crashes are the second leading cause of death after HIV/AIDS. The guidelines presented here are an important contribution to addressing the challenge of road safety management in regional trade corridors. Developed jointly by the Sub-Saharan Africa Transport Program (SSATP) and the World Bank, they are intended to serve as a guide for mainstreaming road safety in regional trade corridor investment programs in developing countries. The guidelines present a roadmap and set of tools with templates for terms of reference to assist in the identification, preparation and implementation of effective road safety projects in regional trade corridors, based on the lessons and global best practice experience. The publication outlines a systematic and logical process for directly addressing priority road safety needs on regional corridors in a streamlined and iterative manner, that will be relevant not only within Africa, but also to other developing regions of the world.Publication Understanding the Emerging Role of Motorcycles in African Cities : A Political Economy Perspective(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2011-04)A decline in organized public transport systems has led to rapid growth in non-conventional means of public transport, initially provided by minibuses and shared taxi/vans, and more recently by commercial motorcycles. Unlike cities in South and East Asia, ownership and use of motorized two-wheelers as a personalized vehicle is very small in sub-Saharan cities. However, over the past decade there has been a significant growth in the use of motorcycles as a commercial public transport mode. While offering certain transport advantages in the form of easy maneuverability, ability to travel on poor roads, and demand responsiveness, commercial motorcycle service growth has also led to an increase in road accidents, traffic management problems, pervasive noise and increases in local air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. Government efforts to regulate the market have had the contrary impact of compounding the problem by distorting market structures. The growth in the use of commercial motorcycles has also dispelled one of the commonly held illusions: fare controls in the public bus market are often justified to support affordability for a vast majority of low income population; however, commercial motorcycles are more expensive than the lowest bus fares, but are increasingly being patronized by the poor due to the inadequacy of bus services. This paper attempts to evaluate the commercial motorcycle mode used in the three cities of Douala, Lagos, and Kampala, based on their political economy context in order to draw general conclusions of value throughout Africa and the rest of the developing world. The evaluation underscores the linkages between governance failure and weak sector performance and highlights the need to adapt policy instruments to local political and economic context. Central to discussion is the necessity to develop a participation framework driven by open communications across a wide spectrum of stakeholders.Publication China : Road Traffic Safety, the Achievements, the Challenges, and the Way Ahead(Washington, DC, 2008-08)Road traffic injuries are a major but neglected global public health problem. Worldwide, the number of people killed in road traffic accidents each year is estimated at almost 1.2 million, while the number injured could be as high as 50 million. Without increased efforts and new initiatives, the total number of road traffic injuries and fatalities worldwide is forecast to rise by 65 percent between 2000 and 2020, while in low and middle-income countries, road traffic fatalities are expected to increase by as much as 80 percent over the same period. In 2002, road traffic injuries were the ninth leading cause of years lost worldwide, equal to 2.6 percent of the global burden of disease. On current trends, by 2020, road traffic injuries are likely to be the third leading cause of years lost. Part one of this reports presents the achievements of the Chinese Government in the last five years and the challenges it faces. Part two reviews the World Bank's experience with road safety in China over the last 20 years and summarizes the legacy of its efforts and the lessons learned. Finally, part three discusses recommendations on the way ahead for World Bank's road safety initiatives in China.Publication Private Sector Involvement in Road Financing(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2014-12)Achieving private sector involvement in financing, provision and management of roads requires specialized legal and institutional frameworks, public sector expertise, advisor support and sustained political commitment. In many African States, there is little experience of private sector involvement in the road sector but there is encouragement to promote such involvement from development partners. Increased private sector involvement in public sector procurement has been for many years an important aspect of the infrastructure investment policy of development partners, such as the World Bank and the African Development Bank. Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) are one of a number of initiatives being pursued within Africa, in relation to road sector reforms. In particular, the road sector reforms under the Road Management Initiative (RMI), launched in 1988 by the SSATP and the World Bank, in collaboration with other development partners have sought to improve road service delivery by reforming public sector institutions and legislation through clearly defined responsibility, ownership, stable financing and commercialized road management. Section two of this paper provides the general requirements for private sector involvement in road financing, provision and management, including contractual and procurement issues. Section 3 introduces the three case study projects. Sections four, five, and six provide the findings of the case studies undertaken in Dakar, Accra and Lagos respectively. Section seven summarizes the conclusions of key issues and policy guidance from the case study analysis.Publication Good Policies and Practices on Rural Transport in Africa : Monitoring and Evaluation(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2014-05)This publication is part of a series aimed at promoting good policies and practices on rural transport in Africa. A recent review of the status of Rural Transport Knowledge Products and Practice (Riverson, 2012) identified a number of knowledge gaps and recommended the production of working papers to address these. One of these gaps was the absence of robust tools, including relevant indicators and instruments, to measure the impact of rural transport projects on rural growth and poverty reduction. This paper addresses this gap. The focus on impact monitoring appears relatively straightforward but in reality requires a distinction between effects and impact, terms used interchangeably in the literature. Similarly, there is a range of technical terms and definitions applied to Monitoring and Evaluation, presented in annex four. A monitoring and evaluation system is an essential element of planning, design and implementation of a rural transport project1 as it serves to assess whether it has achieved its objective and its development goal. Thus, the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) sees independent evaluations as the most rigorous means of measuring [program] impact and [is] at the heart of MCC s commitment to accountability, learning, transparency, and evidence-based decision-making. Yet, there are few completed independent evaluations on the MCC website and the majority of their evaluation effort seems focused on performance monitoring. Similarly, the Indian Government s results-based management of its large agricultural support program separates outcomes from impact and stresses the importance of the former as a means of assessing the performance of government departments such as public works and transport in supporting the government s ambitious agricultural development program (Government of Kerala Memo, 2013).
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
No results found.