The traditional society of PNG has developed without the concept of a wheel. The bible already mentions war chariots in the story of Moses and the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt. Vehicles with wheels, however, have been introduced to PNG only with World War II in the 1940s, when the US Army simply left many of their jeeps and trucks behind.
Today –just 3 generations later—the traffic density in major cities has reached impressive heights, outside of the cities traffic declines rapidly due to lack of suitable all-weather roads.
Transport between the Highlands and coastal areas has already existed for long time for trade of fruits for salt and fish. However, all transport was effected by carrying the goods by foot, typically done by women.
Even today transport paths are often no more than walkable footpaths. The very steep and mountaineous terrain does not favour the construction of durable through-roads. Heavy rainfalls, landslides and frequent earthquakes make road construction a very cumbersome task with only a short life span.
Routes of the minibuses span from the provincial towns outwards like spiderwebs. Villagers transport their goods to the markets in the towns in the morning and back to their villages in the evening on a daily basis. The overloaded minibuses plow their way across the steep tracks and often need to pulled forward through the mud by the passengers.
PNG has no history of transport with vehicles. Traditionally, there are no carriages or other vehicles with wheels. The landscape is too steep, the bush is too dense and the soil is too soft to allow for permanent roads.
Also, there are no large animals that could be used to pull carts. The only traditionally known domestic animal is the boar and it is not useful as a draft animal. Horses, oxen and cows only arrived in the country as domesticated animals with the colonialists. Particularly horses suffered a lot under the tropical climate and are no longer widely used today.
The indestructible Toyota Landcruiser slowly advances into the remote areas of PNG as a pioneer of road traffic and enables a larger mobility range for the rural population. The car owners thereby juggle their cars skillfully across the most adventurous roadtracks and often under life-threatening circumstances. PNG’s society has been catapulted from a purely pedestrian culture into the automotive era within only three generations. The speed of change they have mastered is nothing less than amazing and will continue.