Every morning, you can feel that the traffic movement in the capital city has come to a total halt and social life has been disrupted. Even when one-fifth of the cars are not allowed on the road, based on their plate numbers on weekdays, the roads cannot possibly accommodate the cars now. The normal rhythm of work and life is disturbed, thousands of liters of fuel are wasted every second, and the fumes are poisoning thousands of pedestrians.
As the economy grows and people’s lives improve, the use of cars increases. Currently, there are 736,000 registered passenger automobiles in Mongolia, 60 percent of which are amassed in Ulaanbaatar. From Japan alone, 66,172 passenger automobiles were imported in 2019. With an average value of 16.4 million tugriks each, around 190 passenger cars cross the border each day and 110 new passenger cars are registered daily.
Mongolia continues to serve as a dumping ground for used cars. Only 2.2 percent of the 437,000 passenger cars registered in the capital city are 0-3 years old, 3.8 percent are 4-6 years old, 22.4 percent are 7-9 years old, and the remaining 72 percent are more than 9 years old. Among them, the twin-engine Toyota Prius is the most prevalent vehicle. There are 158,692 Prius automobiles in Ulaanbaatar and 37,919 in rural areas.
The unseen price
Another reason for traffic congestion in the capital city is related to government administration. Officials divided Ulaanbaatar’s land into ministry-monitored and city-owned lands, and then the institutions ran a selling-race, sabotaging the urban planning. The main roads are congested due to crammed neighborhoods, inaccessible buildings, and narrow roads with no space for cars or even people to pass by. These issues stem from the privatization of land right next to roads, and the back-door deals to give hundreds of hectares of land to a few people.
The roads that they claim to have built are cracked after few rainfalls, and there is nobody responsible, nor the money made available to repair them.
Another reason for the increase in traffic accidents is that in a country with right-hand traffic rules, cars which are built according to left-hand traffic rules make up the majority of vehicles on the road. There are many obstacles for road safety such as the risk when overtaking on the road, the breach of speed limits, the glare of the headlights, and the prolonged time required to pay for road access and parking.
Old cars, bad roads and irresponsible drivers were the reason behind many car accidents that have been fatal for hundreds, and left thousands disabled and incapacitated. Nationwide, 25,302 traffic accidents occurred in 2019 – 86.5 percent of which were registered in the capital city and the rest was in rural areas. An average of two people die every day. Moreover, there has been a loss of almost 25 billion tugriks due to traffic accidents alone.
In the capital, vehicles cause about 10 percent of air pollution. Exhaust fumes and dust account for 30 percent of carbon dioxide and 78.5 percent of nitrogen dioxide emissions. Older cars release more fumes, and thus pay higher taxes year by year in developed countries.
In developed countries, 95 percent of used cars are recycled. Because some parts are hazardous waste, there are laws and regulations requiring the parts to be collected and recycled. Batteries and accumulators are extremely dangerous, so countries, such as our two neighbors prohibit the transportation of them over their territories.
However, hundreds of thousands of old cars and car parts used in our country, especially the above-mentioned toxic parts, do not have a designated area to be collected and disposed of, so the waste is lying everywhere, polluting the water and soil. A small portion is left in the warehouses of official dealers, and the rest is dumped in backyards or in the countryside. Regulations on how to transport, recycle and dispose of this type of waste were made just this year.
The time has come to establish a system to reward those who hand over their used cars, while the waste needs to be sorted out, crushed and recycled. Thankfully, starting from this year, a company called “Mongol Auto Recycle Park” is building a recycling plant in Nalaikh with the help of KOICA.
Urgent steps to take
Through taxation, the state can cope with the damage inflicted on the environment and the society. In particular, it is advisable to at least double the excise tax on older cars.
Today, most people use vehicles with engines up to 2,000 cc (cubic centimeters) for personal use. Newer cars with smaller engines exhaust less. Therefore, new or up to 3 years old cars should be exempted from excise tax, expanding people’s choice. This is a good solution not only for the environment but also for the people. Consumers are beginning to realize: the cheaper, the costlier.
We also need to improve our policy for automobile use tax. Starting with luxury cars with large engines, multiplying the use tax and limiting inefficient consumption will reduce traffic congestion. Otherwise, car restrictions based on even and odd number will increase the number of cars, not reduce traffic congestion.
Of course, the existing laws and regulations must be implemented. As mentioned above, it is time to enforce the rules of the right hand side of the road, by first putting a halt on the import of cars with a steering wheel on the right side, and after a certain period of time, restricting them altogether. Moreover, as a transit country connecting our two neighbors, Russia and China, it is economically beneficial for us to have the same traffic rules. Although the National Air and Environmental Pollution Reduction Program (2017) includes this rule, no political decision for implementation has been made to date.
Along with these steps, the quality and accessibility of public transportation must first be improved. A major reason for the increase in the number of obsolete cars today is definitely the deterioration of the public transport sector.
As people’s livelihoods depend more and more on having their own cars, its regulation requires a comprehensive and complex solution. All those issues need to be addressed urgently by means of policy since avoiding protests temporarily does not improve the situation, but rather worsens it.
2020.10.16
Trans. by Riya.T and Munkh-Erdene.D