| Modernization and industrialization brought about a dramatic change of Thai culture, in particular, a change of Thai river culture to a culture dominated by a primate and automobile city, Bangkok. At the same time, the opening up of the country to world trading has resulted in rapid economic growth which has led Bangkok to become a metropolis without an effective comprehensive plan of land use, infrastructure, and transportation networks. The uncontrolled expansion of Bangkok has resulted in a transportation crisis and in environmental degradation. The research shows that transportation construction projects alone, such as increasing road spaces, have not relieved traffic problems. Recently, a number of transportation demand management measures have been proposed and implemented. However, these policies have not been successfully implemented due to factors such as people's attitude, political structure, and culture. The main purposes of this dissertation are: (1) To investigate the evolution of transportation systems in Bangkok and its development. (2) To examine the major impacts of increasing automobile dependence. (3) To explore the major factors that contribute to traffic congestion in Bangkok. (4) To analyze and evaluate the major factors that have led to success or failure in implementing transportation projects in Bangkok.; Exploratory research is the major method of this dissertation, which included the review and analysis of official documents, and surveys and interviews with transportation officials. Open-ended questions were used to explore the perspectives of government transportation officials, both at the executive and administrative level. The survey assessed 149 existing government transportation projects on two bases: whether the projects were meeting the objectives they set, in particular, the results of their implementation, and the obstacles they faced.; The results of this analysis, using evaluation and content analysis methods, focus on project's characteristics that have an influence on the results of the implementation of transportation projects. The study found that major obstacles to the implementation of transportation projects are people's acceptance, top-level political and institutional support, officials' knowledge, stability of policy implementation, and coordination among agencies. |
