Busy traffic at Long Phước toll station on HCM City - Long Thành - Dầu Giây Expressway on August 1 this year. — VNA/VNS Photo Mạnh Linh

HÀ NỘI — Vietnam Expressway Company (VEC) has proposed to set up more electronic toll collection (ETC) at high-traffic toll booths on HCM City - Long Thành - Dầu Giây, Cầu Giẽ - Ninh Bình and Hà Nội - Lào Cai expressways. 

VEC said that the increase is necessary to improve traffic capacity and reduce congestion during weekends and holidays. 

According to the company, since the ETC system was introduced on the expressways of Cầu Giẽ - Ninh Bình, Nội Bài - Lào Cai, Đà Nẵng - Quảng Ngãi, HCM City - Long Thành - Dầu Giây on August 1, the number of vehicles using the services and traffic on these routes has risen beyond expectations. 

As of September this year, there are approximately 3.7 million vehicles with ETC tags, equivalent to four to five-fold the figure in the same period last year. 

The number of newly-registered cars also increased from 3.5 million to 4.5 million. 

During operations, VEC has also registered a number of problems that halt traffic on ETC lanes, such as insufficient account balance, faulty or incorrectly installed tags, and motorists having two different types of tags at the same time. 

These cases could lead to local congestion at the toll areas, which could get more severe on high-traffic expressways. 

Reports show that on the busy Cầu Giẽ - Ninh Bình, Hà Nội - Lào Cai and HCM City - Long Thành - Dầu Giây expressways, gateway toll stations often record spikes in traffic density, which leads to congestion if there is an error in the ETC system. 

Based on these statistics, VEC proposes to add a total of seven ETC at tollgates leading to and out of these expressways. 

The change will take place at Cao Bồ toll station at the end of Cầu Giẽ - Ninh Bình Expressway, Km6 station at the beginning of Nội Bài - Lào Cai Expressway, as well as the Long Phước and National Route No 51 stations on HCM City - Long Thành - Dầu Giây Expressway. 

A company representative said: “This solution of adding more ETC lanes is considered fitting for the actual traffic and the growing number of vehicles through the years.” — VNS