United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific Transport Division

International road transport is a major mode of transport in the region for intra-regional trade and is particularly important for the landlocked countries in providing them access to gateway ports. However, transport by road faces considerable challenges due to existence of numerous non-physical barriers.Common non-physical barriers to international road transport in the region include:

Inconsistent, complicated and cumbersome border-crossing formalities and procedures; large numbers of documents;
Repeated inspections by different authorities;
Opaque rules and regulations;
High and numerous charges for entry or transit;
Non-conformity with conventions to which the countries are parties;
Non- implementation of subregional agreements;
Lack of coordination among control authorities and various stakeholders;
Slow progress in introduction of new technologies, including information and communication technology (ICT);
Restrictions on foreign carriers for the use of domestic routes and operations including short validity of transport permits;
Different technical standards including vehicle weights and dimensions;
Lack of simplified insurance arrangements for vehicles;
Shortage of skilled professional staff involved in international road transport operations; different traffic regulations including variation in signals;
Restrictive visa requirements for driver and crew;
Incompatible working hours at borders;
Different locations of various control stations;
Escort or large cash (bond) deposit for transit of goods; and
Restrictive requirements for temporary importation of transport vehicles.

Despite many initiatives taken by member countries and their development partners to address them; safe, smooth and efficient international transport by road continues to be plagued by various impediments.

Lack of a long term vision and comprehensive approach for the transport facilitation in the region, hitherto, led to many facilitation efforts in relative isolation. These efforts yielded fragmented results and even created new barriers due to conflicting agreements, projects and measures leading to minimal impact on transport facilitation in the region.

The RSF identifies six fundamental issues for the facilitation of international road transport and provides long term targets along with the process to achieve them. It also provides for seven modalities for addressing the challenges to smooth and efficient transport by road in the region.

The RSF will serves as a primary policy document on transport facilitation initiatives for member countries and their development partners to increase coordination among different facilitation agreements, projects and measures to avoid inconsistency and conflicts in planning, formulation and implementation, and thereby increase the effectiveness of facilitation efforts. This will provide synergistic effect of facilitation measures benefiting member countries and their development partners.

The implementation of the RSF will significantly contribute to achievement of regional and subregional transport connectivity, while doing so, it will help improve road safety, transport security and transport efficiency. In addition, it will also help reduce transport cost, inordinate delays in transport process including at the border crossings, and help in controlling pollution as well as vehicle emissions caused due to long transit time and large number of empty runs.

The implementation of the RSF will be undertaken in phases. In Phase I, activities are planned in four areas. First, regional/sub regional action plans to implement the RSF will be studied and agreed by member states, and simultaneously activities will be undertaken under three key modalities of the RSF to help build regional capacity for the facilitation.

The results of the project will be tangible and measurable. Through the indicators on facilitation to be established under the project, state and progress of facilitation in the region can be assessed and monitored. The progress in the implementation and results achieved will be uploaded periodically on the website.