The Hanoi People's Committee is working on a project on putting a cap on the number of cars to reduce congestion and pollution, including charging car entering the city’s downtown.

Under the project, the charge will be paid through bank accounts and Hanoi will request each car owner to open a bank account. Equipment will be installed to detect the car and automatically charge the driver.

According to the Hanoi Department of Transport, driving cars from ring road 3 toward the inner city will be charged and the automatic fee payment will not affect cars’ operation or cause road congestion.
Automatic toll stations will be built to collect the fees.

The city currently has more than six million private vehicles, including 739,731 cars and over 5.76 million motorcycles.

The number of these private vehicles takes up 85.8% of the city’s road. In particular, cars account for only 14.38% of the vehicles but occupy 42.18% of the road surface.

Experts said that without effective control of private vehicle growth, by 2030, Hanoi’s infrastructure will be overloaded from 7.5 to 10.7 times. It requires the city’s authority to take drastic measures to curb private vehicle, especially automobiles. Hanoitimes

Anh Kiet