Vietnam aims to increase public transport, reduce private vehicles

A road in Hanoi during peak hours (Photo: VNA)

Hanoi (VNA) – It is an urgent need for Vietnam to increase public transport and reduce private vehicle, it was agreed at a debate of representatives from nine sub-committees of the National Traffic Safety Committee on December 2 in the framework of the on-going Traffic Safety Conference 2021.

During the event, participants focused their discussion on traffic safety management, international experience in traffic safety, traffic infrastructure and organization, traffic accident-post response, traffic vehicles, traffic safety for aviation, inland waterway and railway.

Former Deputy Chief of the National Office on Sustainable Development of the Ministry of Planning and Investment Dr. Nguyen Duc Thang said Vietnam has prioritized infrastructure expansion but the annual growth of travel demand is always higher than the growth of transport infrastructure.

He pointed out several traffic paradoxes in Vietnam, saying that the rate of private vehicles in Vietnam is higher than the rate of public transport. The ratio of public transport does not increase and is even decreasing in both Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi (from about 12 percent in 2014 to 10 percent and 8 percent in 2015 and 2016, respectively).

Ho Chi Minh City has nearly 10 million motorbikes and personal cars and the figure in Hanoi is nearly 7 million. Many newly-constructed wide roads are still congested at rush hours.

Thang emphasized the need to invest in developing a modern bus system in order to meet 75 percent of the daily travel need.

Regarding Vietnam’s national road traffic safety database system, Nguyen Huu Duc from the World Bank’s global traffic research team in Vietnam said traffic accidents can be predicted and prevented, but systematic efforts to reduce traffic accidents can be hampered by the inaccuracy of road safety data.

He cited an example that data on vehicles exceeding the allowed speed is not available in Vietnam, noting that a five-percent decrease in average speed will help reduce the number of fatal traffic accidents due to this cause by 20 percent

The research team proposed five groups of data to be included in the road traffic safety database based on the UN Voluntary Global  Performance Targets for Road Safety Risk Factors, including speed and alcohol violations, seat belt, helmet and road quality./.

VNA