Transportation Forecasting and Effects on Thailand-Laos Border Crossing Points after Opening of The ASEAN Economic Community

Abstract

Traveling between countries these days has significantly increased in volume than before. Land transport by cars is regarded as one of the most convenient and suitable for countries with contiguous borders. When traveling through borders becomes in demand, an increase in the need for infrastructure development such as surface area and traffic lanes will therefore have to be optimized. As such, development planning is required to forecast future car volume by using currently available resources. In addition, the opening of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) is another major factor that will cause extensive travels between countries. This study examined the volume of vehicles travelling between Thailand - Laos borders, the impact that may arise after the launch of the AEC and the ability to handle the volume of cross-border vehicles.
Nonlinear auto regressive with exogenous input (NARX) was utilized for forecasting the traffic volume on the Mukdahan checkpoint and the Chiang Khong checkpoint. The results illustrate that the correlation coefficient is positive and the mean square error (MSE) is relatively low which implies that NARX is an accurate and a precise method. Hence, the forecast information from NARX can be used as a guide to improve cross-border services in order to prepare for the future, the opening of the AEC and applied to any Thailand’s borders with other countries.