Excess toll gates to be closed

A toll booth on the North Thang Long-Noi Bai Road in Ha Noi. The Viet Nam Road Administration plans to remove 14 toll booths to avoid overlap in collection of road tolls. — VNS Photo Doan Tung

HA NOI — Fourteen toll booths will be removed under a proposal by the Viet Nam Road Administration in order to avoid overlapping toll collections once the road maintenance fund is established in 2013.

National Assembly Economic Committee vice chairman Nguyen Duc Kien said, "We cannot remove all the toll gates at once because many predate the current Law on Traffic."

"Removing fee-collection stations needs to be done according to a specific roadmap as the Government ensures funding for road maitance," Kien said.

The Ministry of Transport has targeted the elimination of toll booths along Soc Son Highway 3, Viet Tri Highway 2, and Cau Ho Highway 37, as well as the Km 58 toll gate on Highway 18.

There are currently 56 toll gates around the country, including 14 built with State budget funds and 30 others operating under Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) contracts, which means that the tolls collected are retained by the building contractor until the project is paid for.

Therefore, BOT toll gates would likely continue in operation, while State-operated stations would be phased out, with the designated six facilities to be removed immediately.

The Ha Noi Department of Transport has also proposed to the Ministry of Transport the removal of toll-collection facilities along the North Thang Long-Noi Bai and North Thang Long-Vuc De routes.

"When the road maintenance fund goes into effect next year, some new toll booths may still be constructed on highways not covered by the fund," Kien noted.

"By next January, we will have a plan in place to collect fees for road maintenance, but we currently don't have the funds to cover all of these costs," Kien explained. "Some new toll gates are therefore reasonable". — VNS