Many BOT investors 'hide' from selling monthly tickets because of concerns about reduced revenue

Many BOT investors, when implementing service fee collection, do not implement monthly and quarterly ticket sales as prescribed.

According to the provisions of Circular No. 35/2016 of the Ministry of Transport on the maximum price of road use services for road construction investment projects for business purposes managed by the Ministry of Transport: Road use service fee collection tickets applied to vehicles participating in traffic through the station include: Single ticket, monthly ticket and quarterly ticket.

However, recently, many BOT investors when implementing service fee collection did not implement monthly and quarterly ticket sales.

Mr. Khuc Huu Thanh Hai, Director of Dat Cang Transport, Trade and Service Joint Stock Company, reported that although the company had proposed many times, the investor of the Hanoi - Hai Phong expressway did not agree to sell monthly and quarterly tickets.

Toll station on Hanoi - Hai Phong highway.

On average, businesses have several hundred vehicles running this highway with a frequency of 2 round trips, and the cost of one-way tickets alone accounts for about 20% of revenue, so there is not much profit. Meanwhile, if monthly or quarterly tickets are purchased, this cost only accounts for about 2-3%.

According to Mr. Le Van Tien, Chairman of the Hai Phong Freight Transport Association, not selling monthly tickets has caused heavy losses for businesses. Each trip requires buying a ticket twice, costing more than 1.5 million VND. Meanwhile, if buying a monthly ticket, you only pay about 1.2 million VND/vehicle (a 20-foot container truck) and there is no limit on the number of trips through the toll station.

"That's why Hai Phong freight transport businesses rarely use this highway and instead choose the old route 5 which is cheaper," said Mr. Tien.

The results of inspection and supervision of ticket sales at BOT toll stations by the Vietnam Road Administration show that not only the expressway, many roads invested in the form of build-operate-transfer (BOT) are still slow to implement monthly and quarterly tickets.

Specifically, the toll station at Km 2016 400 of Duc Thanh Gia Lai Joint Stock Company collects capital for the investment project to upgrade and expand Ho Chi Minh road (National Highway 14) from bridge 38 to Dong Xoai town, Binh Phuoc province under the BOT form.

Or the toll station on National Highway 1K, which collects capital for the investment project to build and upgrade National Highway 1K, section Km 3 300 - Km 12 987 (excluding Hoa An bridge) in Dong Nai, Binh Duong provinces and Ho Chi Minh City, does not sell monthly and quarterly tickets.

Explaining the reason for not collecting fees, Mr. Nguyen Trong Doan, Chairman of the Board of Directors of BOT National Highway 1K Company, said that the investment for the route is up to over 390 billion VND, the toll collection period is 17 years. If monthly tickets are sold, revenue will decrease by 30-40%. The toll collection period needs to be increased to 24 years so that the company can sell monthly tickets.

Mr. Nguyen Van Huyen, General Director of the Vietnam Road Administration, said that this situation exists because investors want to limit the selling date to avoid a decrease in revenue.

Previously, Circular 159 stipulated that people could buy any day of the month and the expiration date would be the last day of the month. Circular 35 recently fixed this by requiring a full month to be counted, regardless of the day of purchase. Many investors are taking advantage of this by not calculating according to Circular 35 but instead calculating according to Circular 159.

Regarding monthly and quarterly ticket sales at toll stations, Mr. Huyen explained that most BOT toll stations are currently collecting fees using the open method. The disadvantage of this method is that it is not known how many kilometers the road users have traveled, so it is necessary to regulate the sale of monthly and quarterly tickets. On the contrary, for expressways, except for the Phap Van - Cau Gie route, all the fees are collected using the closed method, the vehicle pays for the number of kilometers it has traveled, so there is no need to regulate the sale of monthly and quarterly tickets.

"Only BOT stations on highways are allowed to sell tickets by turn, all other toll stations must sell monthly tickets according to regulations," said Mr. Huyen.

Previously, in early November 2017, the Ministry of Transport issued a document criticizing 4 enterprises including: My Loi Bridge Investment Joint Stock Company, Dong Thuan Investment Joint Stock Company, BOT QL1K Company Limited, Duc Thanh Gia Lai Joint Stock Company for selling monthly and quarterly tickets not in accordance with the regulations in Circular No. 35/2016.

The Ministry of Transport requires investors to strictly implement the sale of monthly and quarterly tickets in accordance with regulations. At the same time, publicly announce and post information about prices.

The Ministry also assigned the Vietnam Road Administration to inspect, monitor and handle violations in the collection of road service fees by units under its authority.

According to VnEconomy