Hanoi (VNS/VNA) - In a bid to ease traffic congestionand reduce pollution in Hanoi, around 100 automatic toll stations for carsentering the city’s inner areas could be set up over the next three years.

The plan was revealed at the project “Collecting toll for cars entering Hanoi’sinner areas to reduce traffic congestion and pollution”, which recently hasbeen supplemented by the Hanoi University of Transport and reported to the municipalTransport Department.

A representative of the project’s consulting group told Tien Phong (Vanguard) online newspaperthat currently, Hanoi has many more routes connecting to the inner areas thanit did two years ago.

Therefore, the number of toll stations also needs to increase, he said.

Under the project, by 2025, the areas determined to set up the toll stations arewithin the Ring Road No 3.

All cars moving from outside the Ring Road 3 into the city’s innerareas have to pay tolls.

Some vehicles will be exempted from paying the tolls, includingpriority vehicles, police cars, military vehicles, ambulances, fire trucks;official vehicles; and buses.

The group of vehicles eligible for fee reduction includes cars of publicutility companies; vehicles engaged in passenger transport; vehiclestransporting goods; cars less than nine seats of households living intoll-collection areas, and cars belonging to offices located withintoll-collection areas.

The tolls are determined at 50,000-100,000 VND (2-4 USD) per vehicle. The timeto collect the tolls is between 5am and 9pm.

The total investment for the establishment of a toll station system isestimated at 2.6 trillion VND (106 million USD).

The project will apply non-stop toll collection technology. This form of tollcollection is a combination of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) andAutomatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) through an automatic surveillancecamera system to detect non-paying vehicles, serve toll collection and handlenon-payment of tolls.

The project’s consulting group said when applying to collect the tolls, it isexpected to reduce 20% of traffic flow going into the inner areas, therebyreducing traffic congestion.

The consulting group said that if collecting a toll of 50,000 VND (2 USD) percar, costs of investment, management and operation will be covered.

With a fee of 100,000 VND (4 USD) per a car, there will be an annual budgetrevenue of about 300 billion VND (12.2 million USD) per year.

Data from the transport department shows that Hanoi currently hasaround 6.4 million vehicles, 5.6 million of which are motorbikes. There arearound 600,000 cars, plus another two million other vehicles, from outside thecapital.

Chairman of the Vietnam Transport Association (VATA) Nguyen VanQuyen said that collecting tolls to reduce traffic congestion is a must.

However, it is not simple to deploy the project. Public transport is requiredto meet the travelling demand of the people, he said.

For example, the metro and bus systems in the city must meet 50-60% of people'stravel demand to encourage them to switch from private cars to public vehicles.

But the current capacity of public transport in Hanoi now fails to do that, hesaid.

Khuong Kim Tao, former deputy chief of the National Committee forTraffic Safety’s Office said it is a right policy, but it must be calculatedand the difficulties that may occur when implementing the project must bethoroughly acknowledged.

“First of all, we should have a pilot survey and then have an assessmentbefore expanding,” he said.

For example, the city now has two roads of Le Van Luong and NguyenTrai, which are heavily congested each day. It should pilot collecting fees atthese two roads and then evaluate the effectiveness before applying theproject.

When public transportation is not convenient, people will stillhave to use private cars, he said.

But not everyone is willing or able to pay tolls. At that time,people will avoid traveling on big roads with toll stations, they will travelon small roads, increasing traffic congestion on them, he added.

People will have a tendency to buy houses or apartments inside the Ring Road No3 to avoid having to pay regular and long-term tolls, he added.

And with more people living inside the Ring Road No 3, traffic congestion inthe city’s inner areas will increase.

Phan Le Binh, a traffic expert told Tuoitre (Youth) online newspaper that currently, most of cars in Vietnamhave been equipped with automatic toll payment tags (e-tag), making themeligible to use the electronic toll collection (ETC) system.

So, if the project is implemented, it should be integrated into the ETC card,he said, adding that using another card will be inconvenient and cause moretroubles for people and businesses./.