Field work undertaken for this study along the proposed IMT-GT corridors also
highlights several potential areas of constraints and bottlenecks. The north-south corridor in
Sumatra is currently a two-lane highway for the most part, and barely able to handle
existing traffic volumes. Average travel speed on this corridor was only about 50 kilometers
per hour in field estimates, compared to almost twice that on the north-south highway
connecting southern Thailand to Peninsular Malaysia (the Straits of Melaka corridor). The
north-south Sumatra corridor will likely run into severe constraints within a few years as the
traffic volumes continue increasing. There is need, therefore, for considering expansion of
the corridor into a 4-lane highway at the earliest. There is also a need to prioritize the
link of this corridor to the Dumai-Melaka corridor by improving the road between
Pekanbaru and Dumai. In addition, there is need to further address deterioration in road
quality due to factors such as excessive loading of trucks and inadequate maintenance.
Feeder roads into the north-south Sumatra corridor also need to be improved, and road
rehabilitation and maintenance works need to be expanded