Dynamic Interactions between Private Passenger Car and Motorcycle Ownership in Asia: A Cross-country Analysis

Motorization in Asia is characterized by rapid growths in motorcycle and car ownerships and their interactions over time. An important question is when the people switch from motorcycles to cars and what influential factors are. To help answer this question, this study tried to examine historical trends in car and motorcycle ownerships and their relationship over development stages for selected countries using the national and provincial data. The findings suggested that at the first stage the high level of motorcycle ownership might accelerate the growth in car ownership, but at the later stage it could dampen further growths in car ownership. In other words, households in the developing countries would adopt multi motorcycles rapidly at low income levels and then quickly adopt their first cars; however, their decisions to buy the second or third cars may be delayed or canceled by the appropriate use of the existing motorcycles.