Transportation statistics that can contribute to policies and social infrastructure development aimed at ensuring the healthy growth of cities and providing support for smooth economic activity

• Cities and transportation are essentially two sides of the same coin.
• In developing countries, statistics on cities and transportation are currently in limited supply.
• The statistics to aid in formulating or assessing government policies are limited.
• “Travel speed” would be the indicator that best satisfy various requirements.
• A more cost-effective approach for alleviating traffic congestion would be to combine some of three steps.

This paper aims to discuss the use of city- and transportation-related statistics in the formulation of transportation policies, focusing primarily on ensuring the healthy growth of cities and providing support for smooth economic activity in developing countries. For governments in developing and newly industrialized Asian countries, alleviating road traffic congestion represents one of the most pressing transportation policy needs. In Indonesia, for example, measures aimed at combating road traffic congestion in Jakarta were a key issue in last year's presidential elections.After detailing the close relationship between cities and transportation, this paper uses several case studies to explain the different statistical standards in developed, newly industrialized, and developing countries. The paper then discusses the statistics and analysis methods that play roles in proposing and evaluating policies and looks at the optimal performance indicators and statistics for policies, using case studies to offer concrete examples.