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Transportation

Hanoi Plan To Ban Motorbikes By 2030 To Combat Pollution (bbc.com) 236

Posted by msmash from the putting-a-stop dept.
Hanoi -- a city of five million motorbikes -- is planning to ban the popular two-wheeled transport by 2030. From a report: The city council voted for the ban almost unanimously, hoping to unclog roads and reduce soaring levels of pollution. The council has also promised to increase public transport so that half the population are using it by 2030, instead of the current 12 percent. But some residents think it very unlikely the bikes will go for good. Council officials decided to put "immediate management measures" in place after a report found the number of motorbikes in Hanoi was set to grow at an "alarming" rate. Some studies suggest there are already as many as 2,500 motorbikes per kilometre. According to the non-governmental group GreenID, the city recorded 282 days of "excessive" levels of PM2.5, which is harmful to human health, last year.
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Hanoi Plan To Ban Motorbikes By 2030 To Combat Pollution More

Hanoi Plan To Ban Motorbikes By 2030 To Combat Pollution

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  • It's not the bikes... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by LynnwoodRooster ( 966895 ) on Tuesday July 04, 2017 @01:05PM (#54742425) Journal
    It's the trucks and cars. Encourage motorcycles and scooters, they are much more environmentally friendly, you can pack 6 of them on the road compared to every car, and are extremely low cost so they promote upward mobility of most workers, since they can now commute a fair distance to jobs (not just stuck in their own little village or district).

    • Re:It's not the bikes... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Luthair ( 847766 ) on Tuesday July 04, 2017 @01:09PM (#54742463)
      I'd hazard that many of the bikes are using two stroke engines which are particularly dirty. Maybe the push should be to electric motorcycles?

      • I'd hazard that many of the bikes are using two stroke engines which are particularly dirty. Maybe the push should be to electric motorcycles?

        So legislate the emissions requirements and let manufacturers work it out.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Luthair ( 847766 )
          Except that there are hundreds of thousands of bikes on the road now that will last for decades and likely many underground shops that would continue to churn them out.

          • Then ticket them, it's pretty office when someone is riding motorbike with an internal combustion engine versus an electric. Ticketing and confiscation can be a very big income for a government.

            There are compromises, like allowing motorbikes with license plate numbers ending a certain digit to operate only certain days of the week. that can cut the use by 50%. And make electric bikes exempt from the policy, encouraging a new market.

            • confiscation can be a very big income for a government.
              Only if you can sell the stuff, you confiscate.

            • like allowing motorbikes with license plate numbers ending a certain digit to operate only certain days of the week. that can cut the use by 50%
              That does not work.
              People simply buy a second (or third) vehicle with the 'other number', greece/Athens tried that since the early 1980s.

      • Most motorcycles in Vietnam are four strokes with small displacement (pretty good fuel consumption too, around 50~70 km per litre). Two strokes while not banned directly can't be sold because all motorcycles must meet Euro 3 standard for emission.

        Now while I believe that motorcycle's contribution to air pollution isn't a small one, the main reason is traffic jam instead. I commute to work by motorcycle and it takes me 35 to 45 minutes for a distance of 8 km. Replacing private vehicles with public transport

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by JustNiz ( 692889 )

      >> you can pack 6 of them on the road compared to every car, and are extremely low cost so they promote upward mobility of most workers

      Typical American. Space, cost and upward mobility do not outweigh being able to breathe.

      • Typical American.

        Nope. You can find this opinion all over the world, including places such as India. Their government does not want their economic opportunities limited by environmental considerations. They have literally phrased it as a "brown people" versus "white people" clash, at times. (No, I don't have the citation. It was in the context of one of the environmental summit meetings.)

        Let's face it, most big governments (U.S. and India included) contain factions/segments that care about differen

        • Are you saying the brown people are brown because of the pollution? That they could wash that off if they just had some soap and water? I had no idea.

          For the snark impaired: I'm not being serious. I'd think that I would not need such a disclaimer but past experience tells me otherwise.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by JustNiz ( 692889 )

            >> For the snark impaired: I'm not being serious.

            Then you could at least have been funny.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by JustNiz ( 692889 )

          >> Eventually, though, there comes an environmental crisis, and then everyone realizes they've been poisoning themselves.

          We're beyond already there.

    • Re:It's not the bikes... (Score:5, Informative)

      by MrL0G1C ( 867445 ) on Tuesday July 04, 2017 @01:24PM (#54742557) Journal

      "they are much more environmentally friendly" With regards to CO2 they are a bit more friendly but due to emissions controls being lax for 2 wheelers they can be worse than cars, often a lot worse, Mythbusters covered it, pointing out that cars have had decades of ever tighter controls whilst motorbikes have had it easy.

      http://latimesblogs.latimes.co... [latimes.com]

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by johnnys ( 592333 )

        Yeah, what the Mythbusters did was interesting, but it is no longer applicable. New bikes are FAR cleaner than models from just a few years ago.

        My Ducati Scrambler Icon has a catalytic converter and electronic fuel injection (also ABS for safety!) so it's very clean: It meets the "Euro 4" standards: Euro 4 emission limits (petrol)
        CO - 1.0 g/km
        HC - 0.10 g/km
        NOx - 0.08
        PM - no limit

        And this isn't

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by MrL0G1C ( 867445 )

          "It meets the "Euro 4" standards: Euro 4 emission limits (petrol)"

          When cheated in the lab or in real world tests after a few thousand miles? For obvious reasons I don't believe Lab Euro Test results (they've thoroughly been exposed as utter BS and off by an order of magnitude).

    • Re:It's not the bikes... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Solandri ( 704621 ) on Tuesday July 04, 2017 @01:28PM (#54742589)
      Motorcycles and scooters often lack or have less emissions controls than cars and trucks. And in a place like Vietnam, I suspect many of them use two-stroke engines instead of four-stroke. Two-strokes [wikipedia.org] generate more power per engine weight, but they mix incoming fuel and exhaust gases thus generating more pollution.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Mal-2 ( 675116 )

        Re-burning exhaust gases isn't why two-strokes are nasty, it's the fact that they have no lubrication system and have to mix oil into the fuel to keep the piston rings from seizing. This oil gets burned, with much more black soot than the fuel itself.

        • Actually, THAT is not the biggest reason why two strokes are nasty, either. The biggest reason is that there's no such thing as an engine at a perfect stoichiometric ratio. If you have no mixture control, you are either rich or lean. If you have mixture control, you are rich-lean-rich-lean. Two strokes run lean tend to eat themselves for the reason you describe, so you run them rich. Two strokes run rich throw raw, unburned fuel out the exhaust. That combines with the oil burning to give them their distinct

          • Two strokes run rich throw raw, unburned fuel out the exhaust.

            . . . would adding afterburners help . . . ? It sure would look cool at night.

            That combines with the oil burning to give them their distinctive smell.

            Ah, that smell! Smelled like . . .

            Unburned HCs are the single worst automotive emission.

            victory. Someday this emmision's gonna end...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Megol ( 3135005 )

      Hanoi isn't in the US.

    • It's the trucks and cars. Encourage motorcycles and scooters, they are much more environmentally friendly

      What the hell are you talking about.

      you can pack 6 of them on the road compared to every car

      Now think about this a little more. Think in terms of efficiency in scale and also about the engines that literally burn their oil while they run. Think of it in terms of the number of people per engine.

      Now if you want to educate yourself google it. I'm not going to provide you a source for you to pick apart, I'll let you chose your poison. Pick your source, be it The Daily Fail, Mythbusters, Berkley University, or the NCBI. All of them come to the conclusion that while f

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by johnnys ( 592333 )

        Yeah, that's old data. What the Mythbusters did was interesting, but it is no longer applicable. New bikes are FAR cleaner than models from just a few years ago. My Ducati Scrambler Icon has a catalytic converter and electronic fuel injection (also ABS for safety!) so it's very clean: It meets the "Euro 4" standards. See my post above for further details.

        TL;DR - Multiple reports of how motorcycles are such bad polluters are no longer true as emissions regulations are being applied to bikes. Unmodified new p

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by SirSlud ( 67381 )

      > motorcycles and scooters, they are much more environmentally friendly

      Uh, no.

      • My CTX700 meets CARB, has a cat, fuel injection, and gets 60+ MPG; 70+ MPG if I stay off the freeway (like in Hanoi). A lot less emissions than just about any petrol-powered vehicle.

    • Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday July 04, 2017 @04:25PM (#54743491)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • This. And you can pack up to 5 people on one scooter. Frequently practiced in Thailand, saw with me own eyes. Also seem immune to car traffic jams.

      • That is because in Thailand you have an extra left lane for scooters only.
        I also saw up to 5 (2 or 3 adukts and 2 or 3 kids) on scooters.

  • Motorbites/cycles use less energy than cars so if reducing pollution was really the goal, start with cars, which are the largest offenders. I suspect that a ban on cars would hurt a lot more economic interests. If so, this is just a political PR piece to tell the world, "see we are doing something".

    • Re:The Motorbikes, really (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Whatsisname ( 891214 ) on Tuesday July 04, 2017 @01:31PM (#54742607) Homepage

      Cars aren't necessarily the largest polluters. CO2 production and production of other nasty substances aren't always related. Running a two-stroke leaf-blower for a half hour can easily exceed several days worth of NOx and CO emissions from a passenger car. If a lot of the motorbikes are two-stroke, replacing those may be the best bang for the buck.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Luthair ( 847766 )
        Someone pointed out above near my two-storke post that motorcycles significantly lag behind cars in emission requirements. Apparently motorcycles in California makeup 1% of vehicles but 13% of emissions.

      • Re:The Motorbikes, really (Score:4, Insightful)

        by blindseer ( 891256 ) <blindseer.earthlink@net> on Tuesday July 04, 2017 @03:24PM (#54743249)

        I know this story is from India but I suspect that this is also true in many other parts of the world, like Hanoi.

        In India the primary means to cook food is by kerosene stoves. It seems this is even true in many large cities since electricity is either expensive and/or unreliable. People need to eat or they riot so the government subsidizes kerosene. The government wants to discourage use of motorcycles and auto-rickshaws, so they tax fuel for these highly. Do you see where this is going yet?

        People that want to run their vehicles on the cheap will mix the gasoline with kerosene and get something that kind of burns and runs the engine but blue smoke and soot is produced. This is highly illegal but very difficult to enforce. Now imagine millions of these things on the road, all producing this thick smoke.

        People that have the money to buy a car will want to keep it running, so they don't typically burn kerosene in them. It's also much easier to collect a fine or bribe from someone that actually has money than some poor auto-rickshaw driver that's making deliveries for pennies.

        I see a solution here but I'm sure it's not popular, tax gasoline like kerosene. I don't mean raise kerosene taxes to the level of gasoline, that will lead to riots. Tax gasoline like kerosene.

        I suspect that two-cycle engines can run on kerosene better than a four cycle engine. Lower taxes would lower costs. More money in the pockets of the public mean they can afford more cars and newer motorcycles. Cleaner air from lower gas taxes.

        Since this requires lowering taxes this means it's not going to happen.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Strider- ( 39683 )

          Sorry, but you pretty clearly have little knowledge of how the various fuels and internal combustion engines work. Kerosene is a completely different fuel than gasoline, and with certain rare exceptions (old turbine engines, among others), the two are not interchangeable. Kerosene is pretty much the same stuff as Diesel fuel (as well as Jet fuel, heating oil, and RP1 rocket propellant). It's a comparatively heavy hydrocarbon, with a high vapor pressure. It is also quite difficult to ignite.

          If you put Kero,

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by Trogre ( 513942 )

            Someone should tell India this.

            • Someone should tell India this.

              Precisely. I heard this story of people putting kerosene in gasoline engines from someone that lived in India and saw it being done. It took me seconds of a Google search to see plenty of evidence of people doing this, usually accidentally, and the engine still ran with little to no ill effects, save the blue smoke from the tailpipe. Starting a gasoline engine on pure kerosene is difficult but once it is hot it will burn kerosene. Mix some gasoline with it to thin it out a bit and it will start the engi

    • Motorbites/cycles use less energy than cars so if reducing pollution was really the goal, start with cars, which are the largest offenders.

      Using less energy does not mean less pollution. Take a litre of petrol, pour it on the ground and light it on fire. The emissions will be 100 times worse than pouring that litre of petrol in a car and driving it 20km.

      That's where bicycles are. Very low emissions standard requirements, very inefficient engines that don't burn cleanly and put only the bare minimum into environmental controls. The NOx emissions can be 16x worse on a motorbike than a car. CO emissions 80x worse. Particulates? Well idling a warm

  • a couple of things (Score:3)

    by roc97007 ( 608802 ) on Tuesday July 04, 2017 @01:26PM (#54742575) Journal

    Thing one: Government plans to convert people to mass transit often, historically, fall well short of expectation. Thing two: Banning motorcycles will cause an inevitable upsurge in car ownership. It won't be 1:1 of course, but people and things gotta move and life finds a way. The most probable result will be an increase in pollution and even more packed roads.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Luthair ( 847766 )
      From Top Gear we know that cars are very expensive there. We also know that motorcycle emissions are much higher than modern cars.

      • Let's compare apples to apples. Modern motorcycle emissions are not higher than modern cars. Bikes built in this century, using this century's designs, have O2 sensors and injection and dynamic fuel mixture and antiknock sensors just like cars built in this century. It's California that's driving this -- bike manufacturers who sell in the US generally design to be CARB compliant so they don't miss out on the lucrative California market. The problem is that the bikes in Hanoi are old, or copies of an old

    • Thing one: simply wrong.
      Thing two: cars polute less than two stroke motor bikes.
      Idiot? Well ... perhaps just misinformed.

    • They are having contract disputes with a Chinese company building an elevated light-rail system. It is a ring around the city, with a few spurs in/out. It should go online next year. The dispute is the Chinese company is selling them off their used rolling stock, the contract did not specify New, so corners were cut..
      VN and CN people do not have a happy history, so many outraged stories on the news.

      It will not fall short. Traffic is BAD. ie reach out and touch 8 others as you are driving on a moto.. I

  • Are these mainly ... (Score:3)

    by PPH ( 736903 ) on Tuesday July 04, 2017 @01:26PM (#54742581)

    ... 2 cycle engines? Because the simple solution is to phase out two cycle engines and go to 4 cycle. Much less pollution. Acceptable performance (they aren't racing in town I assume) and less noise.

  • Hanoi plan to ban motorbikes by 2030 (Score:3, Funny)

    by DontBeAMoran ( 4843879 ) on Tuesday July 04, 2017 @02:08PM (#54742809)

    "I won't be able to drive my bike in 2030? That's hanoi-ing."

  • Not all mbikes!
    Those burn lubricant oil along with the fuel.
    Four strokes engines are much cleaner and help keeping the traffic low, so also help against pollution.

  • Comment removed (Score:3)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday July 04, 2017 @02:35PM (#54742977)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Electric scooters are awesome. They're reliable, cheap, and in some cases, less polluting than simply walking to your destination (assuming a Western diet, anyway).
      Really awesome are the e-bicycles that reach scooter speeds.
      They are not really cheap, though.

  • Never been to Hanoi, don't wanna go. But if you Google Earth at the street level view you will see some interesting tidbits.

    1) The motorbikes are at minimum fairly modern, not "ancient" at all. Not easily identifiable as 2 or 4 stroke to my untrained eye, but most have a tail light, which is one of the first things that gets broken on a bike, which means they are decently new.

    2) The overhead situation is not going to be easily overcome. A zillion trees overhanging the streets and a billion trillion ran

  • Has anyone followed the money on this one?

    Because it looks to me like a ploy to increase the prevalence of cars, which are of course much bigger polluters than the worst tuned motorcycles.

    • Because it looks to me like a ploy to increase the prevalence of cars, which are of course much bigger polluters than the worst tuned motorcycles.

      What? Who told you that? The average motorcycle on the road today still lacks emission controls, and pollutes far more per mile or per hour than the average car.

  • Why not simply ban Crap bikes that dont have fuel injection and a Catalytic converter? Modern bikes (if you have carbs your bike is NOT modern, even if you bought it new in 2017) do not pollute very much at all because they now use decent engine systems.

  • They should look at what is happing in China first (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ukoda ( 537183 ) on Tuesday July 04, 2017 @06:45PM (#54743969) Homepage
    They should see what is happening in China first. Many Chinese cities had a very high usage rate of electric scooters. Very practical transport for flat cities that provide lanes for them and a potential pollution free option. Interestingly there is a movement there away from scooters to cars. When the weather is ok the scooters are a more practical solution being cheaper and faster, but in the case of China the movement to using cars is a status thing, not about what is best but what impresses others more. As a result some cities that had free flowing traffic 5 years ago are now gridlocked much of the day.

    Translate that to the Hanoi situation and try and imaging 2500 cars per km! Of course Hanoi is not China and I suspect few people will be able to afford the cost step from a motorcycle to a car. Regardless it is a trend in the wrong direction. The better option would be to ban the new sales of 2 stroke motorcycles now then force the transition from petrol to electric over a period of time. The irony here is the bulk of commuters will likely switch from petrol to electric, simply because of the advantages, over the next few years. For example a few years ago in China I could buy an electric scooter for USD $400 (500W) or a 125cc motorcycle (5KW) for $1200. For the average commuter in a Chinese city it makes little difference. Now in China I have found you can buy more conventional electric motorcycle (1.2KW) for $1000. In my book that means for city commuters electric motorcycles are close to parity with petrol ones in cost and performance today.

    No need for a well intentioned but short sighted law change.

  • They ARE 4 stroke! (Score:4, Informative)

    by WittyName ( 615844 ) on Tuesday July 04, 2017 @08:40PM (#54744277)

    I lived there a year, and left due to traffic, and traffic noise. Pollution is bad, not not much worse than most other asian cities. The biggest problem for me is the slash and burn agriculture which puts a haze over the entire region.

    The bikes are almost exclusively 4 stroke, Honda Dream, Honda Wave, 100-110cc over 175 cc you get a special 200% tax, yes the big bikes then cost 3x as much! Some Suzikis and yamahas, but many parts are interchangable. There is the odd old Russian Minsk, and those are foul.. but those are mostly used in the mountains and by dumb-ass tourists.. Sometimes an old Honda Chaly mini-bike with a 50 cc but really, 99% 4 STROKE.

    Post after post after post, THEY ARE 4 STROKE!

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