According to HCM City People's Committee, the city only has 27.3 million square metres for road while its 5.5 million registered motorbikes and over 500,000 cars need 100 million square metres for traffic.
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| Buses still play a key role in regulating traffic |
The city vice chairman Hua Ngoc Thuan said they would focus on researching and carrying out both economic and administrative measures to limit personal vehicles.
HCM City is also studying to apply a Certificate of Entitlement programme (COE) which will require residents of HCM City to bid for the right to buy a vehicle.
The city will hold an auction once every two months, with the number of certificates deliberately restricted. It is hoped that this measure may limit the sky-high number of vehicles while contributing to the state budget.
Despite opposition from several experts, the city authorities are still studying this method and will submit the pilot plan to the city council.
In the mean time, public vehicles such as buses are also one of important solution for the traffic jams. Though the bus transit system has been developed since 2002, it can only meet 10.6% demand while consuming VND6.8 trillion in subsidies.
"During 2015-2020 period, the bus system will still play the key role in regulating the traffic flow. The metro system will be developed from 2021 to 2025." Than said.
Duong Hong Thanh, vice head of the local Department of Transport said that the state must subsidise the bus system or else no one will use the bus because of high prices, leading to more serious traffic jams. Thanh further said the city will replace the old buses with 1,680 new ones that have higher standards.
