Ladies and Gentlemen,

I would like to report about present situation of the urban transport and bus service in Ha Noi in 2002.

About present situation of Ha Noi urban transport, there have been many studies and I would like to grasp quickly about the issue since we have all understood what the case is like.

About the road network, Ha Noi has 1,424 km of roads, including 276km of inner city roads on 319 streets in total area of 71 km². Density of the urban road network in Ha Noi is low and unequally distributed. For example, in the old town, the density is about 3km/km², while in the newly-developed side in the west, road density is very low, which is less than 1km/km². Structure of Ha Noi roads is mixed and non-comprehensive with short streets and lots of intersections. Average interval of junctions is about 300m. Road carriage way is narrow, with 88% of the roads are 7m-10m wide and only 12 roads are 12m wide upwards. These characteristics must be taken into consideration upon designing transport facilities in Ha Noi city. The rate of land area for transport is also very low, accounting for about 8%, of which, static transport's share is less than 1%.

At present, Ha Noi has over 1,200,000 motorbikes, over 100,000 cars, about 400 route buses and about 2,500 taxis. Thus, private vehicle comprises of over 90% Ha Noi's total vehicles. And people's traveling is mainly by private vehicles, in which, motorbikes and bicycles take the largest share.

Meanwhile, public passenger transport is still weak. In 2001, buses transported only 15,8 million passengers, equaling to 3.8% of 2000's traveling demand. Regarding trip characteristics, trip distance in Ha Noi is rather short, the distance from 4.5-5km accounts for 60% of Ha Noi trips. This is another traveling characteristic of Ha Noi people. Secondly, traveling direction is mainly east - west and such east - west trips mainly follow 2 major corridors of Highway No.32 and HW No.6 and HW.No.1 in the South. These are the most popularly used corridors. And traveling density on such corridors is quite large. For example, on Highway No.6, there's 350 vehicles per day and night and at the intersections of these east-west roads, vehicle's traveling demand have been 3 - 3.5 times exceeding saturation level of road design. Fifthly, road users' awareness is very weak. As we have seen, drivers of mainly motorcycles and non-motorized vehicles often ignore traffic organization and traffic channeling. That's not to mention wrong lane riding and non-stop at red lights. And vehicle flow is mixed, including buses, cars, motorcycles, bicycles and other non-motorized vehicles. In my opinion, these are main features of Ha Noi urban transport system that are very relevant in our study for public passenger transport system.

Ha Noi's infrastructure for buses is presently also quite weak. At present, area of garage, depot and terminal for buses in Ha Noi is very limited. Land area for static transport, including parking lots, is less than 1% of the city's land area for transport. While the land area spared for static transport in the region is 8%. It must be said that infrastructure for public passenger transport system is very low and so far, upon reestablishment of passenger transport system, we are having lots of difficulties. It is very difficult to have enough land fund for bus terminals, bus hub-and-spokes.

Regarding public passenger transport, as we know, before the 1980s, public passenger transport had 70-80 million passengers per year. As Ha Noi's traveling demand at the time is not very significant, public transport system was enable to satisfy up to 30% of traveling demand. There used to be 4 tram lines and 35 bus routes at the time. However, as we entered the 1990s, with the shift to market mechanism, resulting from the thinking that public passenger transport is only a type of business, Government's supports to public passenger transport is no longer available, therefore, this type of transport went down rapidly. From 500 buses, there were then only 150 buses and the number of passengers in 1990 is only 4 million. In 1990 and 1991, tram lines were also broken down to give priority to private vehicles. In my opinion, it is a costly mistake. In 1994, Ha Noi started to care about bus transport again, however, the concern was not very strong. Bus routes were developed and by 1995, we have only 13 bus routes, concentrating on major trunk roads and there wasn't a complete bus network. Bus frequency was also limited due to too low subsidy. Meanwhile, private vehicles were developing rapidly, and motorbike's growth rate is 10-15% per year, and especially, from 2000, due to low-priced Chinese motorcycle, motorbikes' growth rate increased significantly to up to 20%.

In such context, traffic congestion has emerged rapidly and traffic accidents due to private ownership of vehicles have increased in parallel and there is on average 1.5 person die of traffic accident and 150 accident cases of all seriousness. Facing such situation, from 1997-1998, the Government and MOT has urged Ha Noi and HCMC to have plan and measures to develop bus transport system and from 1998-2000, we have formulated the plan for public passenger transport development 1998-2000 and so far, Ha Noi's bus system are being developed basing on the plan which was approved by Decision 40 of the Government with very ambitious objectives: by 2000, Ha Noi's bus system would satisfy 30% of traveling demand by bus, with 63 bus routes and 1,600 buses. However, we failed to achieve such objectives. By 2000, we were capable of transporting only 13 million passengers. So what are the reasons for such failures? Theoretically, about bus system design, bus criteria, etc. we have already agreed with Professor Ieda's presentation, but I personally completely agree with one point in his presentation, that is the one about a strong will to implement such plan. In the past, every year, the city municipal granted a certain subsidy for buses, so we had to arrange the buses in priority main corridors, while frequency of such bus was dependent on the subsidized amount. Facing serious traffic congestion and accident, Ha Noi has had a brave resolution, proving Ha Noi leaders' strong will. The city municipal and party leaders has pointed out that from 2000-2005, the city's bus system must satisfy from 20-25% of people's traveling demand. Seeing from the background that we were then able to satisfy only 3.5% of the demand, we could see that it is really a strong determination of the city's leaders. Such determination is shown firstly in such objectives as renewing and improving bus quality, quality of public passenger transport by bus and public passenger transport must satisfy 7%-9% traveling demand of the people in 2002 and 20-25% in 2005.

The results are firstly re-organization of the bus route network to ensure inter-connection as we used to have 30 bus routes but from 2002, we reorganized the routes to avoid overlapping of routes to create route inter-connection wherein the routes mainly follow major trunks and at the same time, round routes are opened for a complete route network. That is restructuring of bus route system. The second result is complete renewal of bus fleet. Buses of over 15 years were dismissed and in 2002, we have invested in 200 new buses and received 50 France's Renault buses, increasing the total number of buses to 406 for 2002 plan year, of which, none is over 15 years. A third result is completion of bus infrastructure system including bus stops, waiting places and terminals. And fourthly, regarding bus fares, the fare has been determined not exceeding 10% of people's income, therefore, Ha Noi's bus fare is quite attractive to low income earners. That's investment.

About organization and management, we used to have 3 bus operators which have independent accounting scheme from each other and bus operation is basing on piecework for both subsidy and revenue, resulting in the operator's concentration and competition in well-operated routes. In 2001, we have merged all 3 units into 1 big company and on that base, we have improve the bus route network and have been capable of creating a unified organization and management and starting to issue inter-routes fares. So with the existing route network, and as the fare system being improved, the 30 routes started to inter-connected and brought about convenience for passengers.

Thirdly, within the routes, we have increase bus frequency for better convenience to passengers. Key routes have peak-hour frequency of 5-10 minutes and off-peak frequency of 10-15 minutes. And we have also increase operation hour of buses from opening to closing to 14 hours a day. In parallel with these, we have abandoned the piece-work payment regime for bus drivers and pay them higher as per bus servicing quality, including bus running on proper route, receiving and letting of passengers at bus stops, selling fare at right price and vehicles are clean and smart, etc. Such systems have meet passengers' demand and the results are very significant and encouraging. From 18.1 passengers in 2001, by the end of 2002, we received 48.8 million passengers, 3 times higher than in 2001 in a very short time. And in the first 3 weeks of January 2003 only, we have had over 7 million passengers. The success is really spectacular and in my opinion, such results completely correspond to the studied projects. The success depends greatly on the leaders' will, bus operating business is a special type of service which does not bring about direct benefits to transport operators but via social benefits. And as calculated by MOT, Ha Noi losses over 1 million dong a year due to traffic congestion. Ha Noi has been fully aware of this and in 2002, bus subsidy was not limited, meaning, we can increase bus frequency to satisfy passengers' demand and account the expenses to the city at year end on actual expenses - actual payment basis. This is a significantly convenient point in 2002 and I personally think that the 2002 success was thanks to a determined policy and regime and leaders' will in public passenger transport problem.

Entering 2003 and later, we see that the encouraging results of 2002 yet put us before a big challenge. The objective of 2002 is making bus's presence available to the people and consequently, bus using demand increased significantly. However, bus capacity is limited and this is a really a challenging question. As we see, during peak hours, almost all buses are over 30% overloaded. In fact, during peak hours, bus passengers have no space even for standing. This is good regarding bus operating but worrisome regarding convenience and comfort for passengers. If such overloaded transportation is continued, passengers may soon quit buses. Therefore, the objectives for 2003 are maintaining the achievements of 2002 and continuing to improve service quality for bus passengers as follows: opening 7 new routes to increase total length of the route network to 701 km and increase bus service coverage to 87% of the city's area and developing areas. Secondly, we will invest in 320 new buses to increase Ha Noi's bus fleet to 618 buses in 2003.

Regarding operating routes, we will classify the routes into 3 types: Type 1 covers major corridors with densely travel demand, wherein operating time will be 18 hours a day, including 8 peak hours and 8 off-peak hours with bus frequency of every 5 minutes during peak hours and every 10 minutes during off-peak hours. Type 2 will have operating hours of 14 hours a day and frequency will be every 10 minutes during peak hours and every 15 minutes in off-peak hours. Third type will operate 13 hours a day with 6 peak hours and 7 off-peak hours and bus frequency of every 15 minutes at peak hours and every 30 minutes at off-peak hours. The determination of bus operating time and frequency will eliminate the existing major shortcoming on the whole network. At the same time, enhance and strengthen improvement, completion and new investment for buses such as bus stops, waiting places and starting to study exclusive lanes for buses to increase bus speed.

The point is that some routes have almost reached bus capacity saturation point, for example on NH No.32 or on some major trunks, we have arranged bus frequency of every 5 minutes during peak hours, so in one peak hour, with over transportation, buses have carry nearly 5,000 passengers. I think that such figure has already been higher than calculated capacity. Nevertheless, such transport capacity is still much lower than traveling demand. For instance, on NH No6, there are 350,000 personal trips per day and night while our bus's capacity is limited, capable of satisfying only 10% of traveling demand. So we have to study to further increase bus capacity. And measures to increase bus capacity can be: firstly, arranging direct buses as bus frequency cannot be unlimitedly increased since it may cause congestion at bus stops at peak hours; secondly, increasing bus speed as at present, at peak hours, due to heavy traffic, bus speed is very limited. Therefore, we are considering exclusive lane for buses. However, exclusive lane is also very difficult, as carriageway width of roads in Ha Noi is different by sections. The exclusive lane is definitely needed, so we have to consider the measure of sectional exclusive lane or partially exclusive lane. And in upcoming time from 2003 to 2007, Ha Noi still has to concentrate on improving bus capacity by stronger measures, including elevated roads for buses. I say so because although we really have great expectations on mass transit, it largely depends on GDP. I personally think that only after 2007 can Ha Noi have some tram lines, thus although bus capacity is limited, we must find all possible ways to improve its capacity. And from 2003, we can start studying elevated bus road beyond the ring road No.2 and later, in 2007, when people have been used to exclusive roads, and economic conditions are met, we can install the rails and tram, so there won't be any sudden change and in my opinion, this is quite feasible. Thus, from 2003, on one hand, we maintain and promote buses and on the other hand, we will study higher capacity transport modes. And the steps would be regular bus, critical bus and rail transit, including firstly light rail and later mass transit. In 2003, we will concentrate on improving bus capacity and we are sure that in 2003, bus passenger amount will be 100 million since in January only, number of bus passenger has already been over 10 million.

Another objective for 2003 is organizing a SoE which plays a dominant role in bus system. Such enterprise shall take the role of developing the bus system and regaining the trust of bus users. Also in 2003, we shall study to prepare for the participation of other sector in bus operation in 2004. In 2003, we shall cooperate with TDSI to develop the fare tariff, economic technical norms for bus vehicles in Ha Noi. And on that general norm and criteria can we allow the participation of other sector into bus service.

Secondly, we are starting to issue various types of fare on different fare distributing channel, including inter-route fare on the whole network.

Besides, due to Ha Noi road's capacity is limited, leading to difficulties in the formation of bus route, we are developing a different type of bus - that is commuter buses and contract buses for students and workers in highly population concentrated areas where bus route cannot be developed to increase bus output.

So there will be various types of buses: route buses, straight buses, express buses and contract buses. And for the bus network to completely cover Ha Noi area, we are concentrating on investing in expanding entrance road to residential areas.

In general, public passenger transport and urban transport in Ha Noi is related to many other issues: firstly planning, secondly, economic conditions, thirdly, people's perception and fourthly social awareness. Therefore, I think that it requires comprehensive measures to promote the effectiveness of such transport system. Therefore, we really need comprehensive and serious studies for Ha Noi transport. And there are various study subjects. In 1993-1994, a transport study was done by JICA and the study was very useful and was one of the orientations for us. We also cooperated with Inner France region to do a study. I see that almost all studies have been rather concentrated, but the point now is the steps and the works to be done. Therefore, I would propose that the studies should suggest specific steps and I would also wish that Vietnam Government and Japan Government as well as other Governments should grant specific sponsorship for these studies.

Regarding scientific aspects, Ha Noi's transport characteristics are different from other countries over the world. Ha Noi used to be a small city with only 300,000 inhabitants and so far, the inner city area has already housed 1.7 people and nearly 3 million if the outer city area is included. I think that developing characteristics are also different. Ha Noi is a city which is currently improving and fast developing, economic conditions and the urban areas are developing very fast and characteristics of traffic is also different, private vehicles, including motorbikes and bicycles have been increasing rapidly. So the theories and calculations used here must be recalculated. Most of the theories used for transport calculations in other cities are mainly for cars, while in Vietnam, this is different. Thus, the studies for Ha Noi are very interesting regarding scientific aspects. With the time and efforts of scientists for the studies and sponsorships of the Governments, I believe that we will have a brighter picture of Ha Noi transport situation very soon in the future.