A city proposal to implement Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) for cars in HCMC’s downtown has drawn criticism from the public, the National Assembly and outside analysts – just about everybody except for the company set to earn a profit on the project.
Tien Phong (Innovative) Technology Development Corp. (ITD) has been overexcited about employing “the modern technology of Singapore,” in downtown Saigon ever since it was assigned to carry out the project, but no reliable study suggests that such an innovation would suit HCMC.
Lam Thieu Quan, general director of ITD, said such a study would be too expensive. He said the company would only carry out such a study if the municipal administration officially approved the project.
Quite an odd process.
Instead of doing a study and then proposing a method for approval, the method has been proposed and the company is waiting for approval before doing a study.
It should also be known that the city government chose ITD not through bidding but simply because the company operates 70 percent of the country’s automatic toll stations. In other words, ITD was chosen not as the best contractor offering the lowest cost, but as a familiar toll collector.
ITD has cited the successful implementation of ERP in Singapore, London and Stockholm to support the toll system case.
But when you compare those cities to HCMC, the difference is stark. Our infrastructure is poorer, our roads are fewer and of lower quality, and our drivers obey a much smaller percentage of traffic regulations than in those cities.
ERP alone will not solve the traffic problem. Public transportation must be improved and traffic police also have to do their job.
In London, traffic jams were reduced by 50-60 percent after ERP because people switched to public transport. But public buses cannot replace private vehicles in Vietnam, both in terms of quantity and quality. Car owners in Vietnam, who are by definition wealthy, would much rather pay a few dong to take their car into the city than crowd into one of our dirty buses.
Some have said that the city should be brave enough to give the method a try to see how effective it might be. But such a trial will cost VND700 billion (US$39 million) in taxpayer money, and most residents would rather not be the mice in a failed experiment.
Source: thanhniennews.com
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