3.2 million cars must have automatic toll stickers at BOT stations

The above roadmap is not only to comply with the Prime Minister's directive but also to make BOT projects transparent and increase convenience for people. However, there are still many barriers from determination to reality.

Clear benefits but still stuck from station to people

If using automatic toll collection, it is not difficult for users to feel the convenience when it only takes a few seconds for the vehicle to pass through the toll station without stopping or slowing down. For the people, credit providers or state management agencies, automatic toll collection will make the toll collection process transparent and questions about ticket rotation and revenue ambiguity will no longer exist.

Toll stations on the Hanoi - Lao Cai highway are quite crowded.

However, although it started in 2016, to date only 17 BOT stations on National Highway 1 and Ho Chi Minh Road have officially operated automatic toll collection with at least two lanes and the rate of people paying automatic tolls at the deployed stations is still very low.

For example, at Hoang Mai BOT station, Nghe An - one of the stations that deployed quite early with a large number of vehicles paying automatic tolls, the station's average daily revenue is about 890 million VND but automatic toll collection is only about 60 million VND, accounting for less than 7%.

At other stations, this number is much lower and according to statistics, the number of vehicles with stickers for automatic toll collection nationwide has only reached more than 400,000 vehicles, although the stickering has been deployed at inspection stations, toll stations as well as some mobile points.

According to the report of the Ministry of Transport, there are many reasons why automatic toll collection is sluggish, including the fact that some investors avoid automatic toll collection because they are afraid of transparency. However, some BOT investors said that they support the policy of non-stop toll collection but do not want to sign a contract with VETC because it is a form of "forced negotiation" in a monopoly style, because currently only this company is officially provided with non-stop toll collection service and the toll rate on total revenue is still high.

A survey at some inspection stations showed that many vehicle owners were not interested and did not want to apply the automatic toll collection sticker even though it was free. Mr. Phan Duc - Director of the Motor Vehicle Inspection Center 1501V - Hai Phong said that his unit implemented the application of non-stop toll collection stickers very early at the end of 2016, but most customers were not interested, or even did not agree to apply the sticker because there were not many toll stations implementing non-stop toll collection or if implemented, there was only one lane and most of them collected fees according to the old model.

Hoang Mai, Nghe An automatic toll station has very few vehicles.

Many car owners, when asked, said they did not know about this service or had only heard about it but did not understand how to use it. Some car owners had had the sticker for over a year but “didn’t bother” to top up because they were still used to paying manually.

According to Mr. Le Tien Khanh - Chairman of Phu Tho Transport Association - the Association as well as enterprises support the policy of the Government and the Ministry of Transport, but in reality, up to now, the use of stamps and automatic toll collection has not been widespread because "not all stations collect automatic tolls and there is too little information, so drivers still use tickets". Mr. Khanh said that when all automatic toll stations are gone and it is mandatory, drivers will comply, but currently, a car from the North to the South "some are automatic, some are not, which is difficult".

Automatic toll lane at Hanoi - Bac Giang Expressway BOT Station.

Regarding the expansion of the above service providers, the Ministry of Transport said it is coordinating to speed up procedures for VietinF Company to conduct bidding in June and it is expected that by September there will be more automatic toll collection service providers.

Discussing the two concepts of “toll collection” and “price collection”, the leader of the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) Department said that both terms refer to the collection of road use fees to recover capital for BOT transport projects. However, before January 1, 2017, all projects were called “toll collection”, the authority to decide on the fee level belonged to the Ministry of Finance and each project would have its own circular on toll collection, fee levels as well as the roadmap for fee increase. After January 1, 2017, when the Law on Fees and Charges officially took effect, this term changed to “price collection” and the authority to decide belonged to the Ministry of Transport.

“Because it was transferred to the Ministry of Transport for management, the ministry recently had the authority to reduce fees for projects, but before that it was not allowed to reduce fees,” this representative explained. Because not many people know about the nature of this change, there have been opinions that there is confusion between the two concepts.