Several drivers stopped their cars, forcing Ninh An BOT toll booths in Khanh Hoa province to open their gates on January 2. (Photo dantri.com.vn) Hanoi (VNA) -The Ministry of Transport needs to come up with a plan to solve all problemsrelated to BOT (build-operate-transfer) road toll stations nationwide thisyear, while issues of overloaded trucks and traffic safety are also in need ofurgent attention.
Minister of TransportNguyen Van The made the statement at a conference held on January 2 to reviewingthe implementation of activities in 2017 and setting out this year’s tasks atthe Vietnam Directorate for Roads.
The said that the issues atBOT tollgates have become more complicated following protests by drivers. Thus,the ministry and relevant authorities need to seek solutions in order tobalance the interests of the State, investors androad users.
He suggested that theapplication of automatic fee collection would help solve the problem and alsoensure fairness in monitoring the collection of fees.
In addition, the settlementof the BOT projects would also need drastic measures. The assigned the VietnamDirectorate for Roads to coordinate with the project management boards toquickly complete the settlement of the BOT projects.
The directorate must createconditions for businesses to invest in non-stop toll collection systems toavoid a monopoly. The ministry would issue strict fines for vehicles passingtollgates without an electronic tag in the future, he said.
At the conference, Thestressed that the directorate needed to focus on overloaded trucks and trafficsafety.
Deputy director of thedirectorate Nguyen Xuan Cuong said that the number of overloaded trucks hadstarted to increase again in some localities, which was caused by thewithdrawal of police officers from functional forces at patrol spots to monitorthe loads of vehicles.
As a result, supervision atthe spots was inefficient. In addition, local authorities failed to takemeasures to reduce the number of overloaded vehicles on the road.
Unregistered passengerbuses have become a problem in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City due to loosemanagement of local departments of transport and the directorate.
Ineffective cooperationbetween authorised agencies and a shortage of funding have led to more than7,679 kilometres of road and 856 bridges not receiving regular repairs.
Currently, there are 230traffic accident black spots nationwide.
In reply to thedirectorate’s report, The said the report did not show specific problems of thetransport sector.
He cited the traffic systemas an example. There were 23,000 kilometres of highways nationwide, and about2,300 kilometres of roads that needed to be repaired each year. Thus, it took10 years to rotate all the roads for repair work. This has caused the trafficnetwork to become seriously degraded.
The asked the directorateto give priority to repairing downgraded roads instead of building new ones.
He also said that thedirectorate needed to enhance the application of technology for the supervisionof the transport sector, such as installing cameras on highways and busstations.-VNA
VNA
