Dr.Eng. Vo Kim Cuong, Deputy Chief Architect, HCMC People's Committee
Apart from the problem with motorcycles, and in order to develop an urban railway system in line with a support system being a bus system, the largest difficulties is to improve the city infrastructure and to implement land acquisition for mass transit corridors. And at present, it is not quite easy to call for a huge investment and expect adequate cost recovery. I think those are the most critical issues for HCMC. Thank you.
Mr.Dang Dinh Long, Vietnam Railway No.3 Union
I think the largest problem against public transport development is the rapid development of 2-wheel transport means, namely motorcycles and bicycles, which lead to increasing traffic flows and cause congestion. In order to ease the situation and to facilitate public transport, the Government should carry out price subsidy policy for public transport modes or other support activities by one way or the others. For example, the Government should decrease or even lift all taxes on public transport modes, provide cheap imported vehicles and allow private participation in public transport system, especially bus system.
And the Government should also identify investment strategies for elevated railway and metro, using all available funds. Besides, it is advised to increase costs for personal modes so that the people consider it is cheaper to travel by public modes than by personal modes. By then they will choose public transport.
Dr.Trinh Van Chinh, Vice Director, TDSI South
From my point of view, in order to help develop a mass transit system, the public transport sector in HCMC should self-improve their existing humble position by diversifying their service types, improve bus service quality. To do this, it is required for a support policy by the Government as recommended by the MOT, so that bus riders and other public transport users may enjoy their cost subsidy in buying monthly tickets and other ticket types. Then, I think, more traditional motorists will prefer public transport.
And next is the required investment in mass transit, namely both elevated and underground metro, which is known as extremely expensive. I highly appreciate Dr.Iwata's presentation, which presented our studied plan for metro lines. As you may know, the average price for 1km of elevated track, as stated by the WB, is not less than USD 40 million, and USD 60-120 million for underground track. That means we will need a huge investment of about more or less USD 300 million for the planned line from Ben Thanh Market to Tan Son Nhat Airport (7km) and a similar amount for the Ben Thanh-Binh Tay line (6km, underground).
However, we can introduce several investment models like BOT, joint ventures, and state budget. And we can rely on foreign soft loans and ODA. Finding funds for investment is hard, but not impossible.
