Automatic non-stop toll collection: Need to change people's habits

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More troubled

According to Nguyen Viet Huy, Deputy Director of the Public-Private Partnership Department (Ministry of Transport), according to the previous plan, the Governmentset a time complete the project by December 31, 2019.

However, due to some subjective and objective reasons, the Ministry of Transportreported to the Prime Minister to extend the deadline until December 31, 2020.

By December 31, 2019, the Ministry of Transport completed phase 1, namely 40 booths. However, the most difficult thing is that the projects of Vietnam Expressway Development Investment Corporation (VEC) cannot find the implemented capital.

The reason is because VEC's project borrowed ODA capital, the loan agreementhas now ended. The second reason is that VEChas transferred to the State Capital Management Committee, the implementation is also more difficult.

Phase 2 of the project has 33 booths. According to the plan, after the Prime Minister adjusts Decision 18, investor partnership of phase 2 will set up a project enterprise to sign a contract to deploy these booths. At present, the survey and design of these 33 booths has been completed, when the project enterprise is established, the project will be constructed immediately.

Referring to the cause of the delay in automatic non-stop toll collection, Mr. To Nam Toan, Director of Department of Science, Technology, Environment and International Cooperation (VietnameseGeneral Department of Roads) said that they cooperated closely with the authorities to assess the overall difficulties, obstacles and causes of the implementation progress of automatic non-stop toll collection.

“The objective reason, in my opinion, is firstly because the form of automatic non-stoptoll collection is new to Vietnam in both technology, management model and implementation form.This leads tonon-suitableissueswith reality, leading to inadequacies which need to be removed. In addition, the implementation of road toll reduction and exemption has led to a reduction of 30-50% in revenue of BOT projects.Since then, the financial plan of non-stop collection has not achieved as at the beginning target,making credit sponsors worried and slowing the progress of the project.VEC's project and the second phase projects still have many problems in capital, bidding for establishing project enterprises.

According to Mr. To Nam Toan, many charging booths in the locality when deploying, installed two lanes, only reached 10-20% of vehicles used. We also question whether additional work is wasted or not. We invest a lot, but one stop lane is congested, the non-stop lane isdeserted, typically Hoang Mai booth. Although the General Department of Roads of Vietnam, the Ministry of Transport, the BOT toll collector has communicated a lot, but still have not changed the habits of the people.

People still have not been able to change the habit of using cash when using the form of non-stop automatic toll collection. Illustrative: Internet.

Which solution?

According to Mr. To Nam Toan, the form of BOO contract in investment project of non-stop toll collection was a new form. This was a tripartite contract, between the authorized State agencies, the investorof non-stopautomatic toll collection and the BOT investor.

In addition, there are also many partners such as card issuers,so it was very complicated.When negotiating a contract,it was difficult and wasted due to involving many partners.

Another reason is that the procedures in investment are very complicated, ensuring the right regulations and harmonize the interests of many parties takes a lot of time while civil servants are not allowed to act against State regulations. Therefore, the process of reviewing, adjusting and negotiating financial options for these projects is very difficult.

“In addition, the experience of the Vietnam General Department of Roads in the implementation of non-stop automatic toll collection is not limited. This is a new model, so when we encounter problems, we also spend time researching to find solutions, do not dare to be assertive to do right away, sometimes we have to go step by step,” Mr. To Nam Toan said.

In order to promote non-stop toll collection, Mr. Ho Trong Vinh, Deputy General Director of VETC Automatic Tolling Co., Ltd said that in 2015, talking about automatic toll collection, many people did not understand. Now many people understand but may not understand everything. This fact may stem from ineffective communication activities, not the right object due to people's cash-spending habits.

In the plan of VETC with the Ministry of Transport and the General Department of Roads of Vietnam, we are currently trying to deploy and put into operation the non-stop toll of the Phap Van – Ninh Binh highway on May 25 and the Ha Noi - Hai Phong highwayis expected to take place in June this year. Hopefully, in June, all problems on these two routes will be solved because of the traffic congestion at Phap Van - CauGie.

Regarding solutions to promote non-stop toll collection, Mr. Vinh said that the cash spending habit cannot be changed immediately, it must be gradual. At the same time, there must be a roadmap when deploying ETC lanes, there should be a regulation to prevent vehicles without ETC, so that customers must see the benefits of using ETC cards neverget stuck.

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VETC will link with the bank to automatically subtract some of the residual accounts to serve the account holder using ETC card. Target must be implemented to facilitate both users and the bank.