Brunei's situations

It was estimated that currently there is about one vehicle for every three people in the country.

More than 95,000 young people will reach driving age, while only about 36,000 older people are likely to cease to drive.

Vehicle ownership for the whole population is 680 vehicles per 1,000 people or just over one vehicle for every adult over 19 years of age in the country.

The number of vehicles is greater than the number of driver’s licenses issued.

Problems faced:

This project focuses on the problem of too many cars vehicles in Brunei.

The problem is described below in terms of social, environmental, infrastructure and economic aspects,

Social and cultural aspects:

o Small size cars are popular choice in Brunei

o The increase in the number of people using cars with high capacity engines increases the consumption of fuels – which leads to more carbon dioxide emission.

o Bruneians keep buying cars to travel - they are too dependent with cars

o Bruneians are not used to use the public transport and prefer to have their own car to travel to destinations near or far. Why?

o The taxi service is expensive and the buses are not well maintain and not on time.

Economic aspects:

o The cars that are sell in this country is quite cheep

o Fuel are also cheap

o There are no road tax in Brunei

Infrastructure, Governance and Legal aspects:

o Families are not restricted on the numbers of cars they can own

o People are not restricted on how many passengers they need in order to drive a car or into a certain area. E.g. Singapore

o There are no laws or few laws which the Department of Land Transport can act against raising problems.

Environmental aspects:

o If each people use car to travel, more carbon dioxide will be produce

o Wasting space, money and fuel

o The air will be polluted and unhealthy to the population

Solutions to the problems

Social and culture aspects:

o Instead of driving a car for a short journey it would be better to walk or jog, this may help us to improve our health too as well as improving our air quality.

o It is useful to encourage people to share car (car pooling).

o Driving fast may produce more carbon dioxide than when traveling slowly.

o Buses must always maintain a good standard of services

o Taxies should reconsider the payment for there services

o

Infrastructure, Governance and Legal aspects:

o Give the Department of Land Transport more authority to do they job

o Allow the department to be able to produce more laws that can help do there work efficiently

o More cooperation need from people

o Early education about global warming can help

Economical aspects:

o Hybrid cars are work by using both fuel and battery hence less fuel is used therefore less combustion of carbon dioxide into the air.

o Solar power cars

o Hydrogen fuel cars

o It is comment sense that Carbon Dioxide emission can be reduce if a lot of people use busses rather than their own car.

o

Environmental aspects:

o Carbon dioxide is taken up by tress or plants in a process called photosynthesis. All the trees that have been cut should be replanted back.

o Many people now pay to offset their carbon emission.

o Cars manufacturer nowadays have to follow the emission standard which every cars manufacturer agree

o Currently the cars manufacturers are following the Stage III (Euro 3) standards. It would come in force preferably from April 1, 2008, but not later than April 1, 2010.

Action Plans

Some of the plans that we thought were:

1. write a suggestion letters

a. to the Department of Land Transport

i. car inspections need to be done frequently

ii. driving instructors can teach their students also about how to reduce global warming impact caused by cars practically

b. to the Ministry of Education

i. suggesting the insertion carbon emissions and global warming in schools and colleges for example, lesson plan for teachers and topics about global warming caused by cars could be inserted in the students’ learning.

c. to the University Brunei Darussalam

i. to propose the use of car pool amongst lecturers and student in UBD. We propose that any cars with less than 3 persons in a car to not be allowed to enter UBD campus. It can minimize some problems such as limited parking

ii. Other suggestion that we would like to propose is providing buses for students and lecturers.

2. We could write a letter of opinion to the Borneo Bulletin, Brunei Times and Media Permata about how vehicles increase global warming in Brunei and the possible solutions that can be taken in future by the public.

3. design a poster, to educate UBD students about the effects of vehicles to our environment which can lead to global warming through the emission of carbon dioxide.