Vehicles with blue and red license plates must have a non-stop toll tag

Late yesterday afternoon, Minister Nguyen Van The chaired a meeting to review the progress of the non-stop automatic toll collection project.

This is a meeting held every two weeks by the Ministry of Transport to ensure implementation progress.

The Minister said that to implement the Prime Minister's Decision 07 on automatic non-stop toll collection, the Ministry of Transport has been closely following the implementation.

For the BOO1 non-stop automatic toll collection project (phase 1), there are currently 26 stations on National Highway 1 and Ho Chi Minh Road through the Central Highlands that have all been completed. Of these, 23 stations have been put into non-stop toll collection, the remaining 3 stations are basically completed but have not yet collected.

The Minister of Transport chaired a meeting to review the progress of the non-stop automatic toll collection project.

The Ministry has also promoted 18 toll stations of expressways and national highways not located on National Highway 1 and Ho Chi Minh Road.

To date, some stations have been completed. According to the schedule, this year, the Tasco - VETC (VETC) investor consortium must complete the project.

Mr. The said he will closely monitor the progress of VETC. If the progress is not completed, the project will have to be transferred to another investor.

The BOO2 project (phase 2) will implement automatic non-stop toll collection at the remaining 33 toll stations. The Ministry of Transport has asked the Government to open a public bidding, in which priority will be given to large domestic telecommunications corporations such as Viettel, VNPT, Mobifone... because these units have good infrastructure and fast implementation.

The winning bidder for the BOO2 project is expected to be announced in July.

Why not effective?

According to Nguyen Van Huyen, Director General of the Vietnam Road Administration, although there are 26 BOT stations implementing automatic toll collection, out of 1 million vehicles with Etag stickers, only about 30% go through the non-stop lane at the stations. The rest mainly go through the regular lane (stop to tear the ticket before going through the station).

Vehicles without Etags must queue to pay in the one-stop lane and are not allowed to encroach on the non-stop lane.

Deputy Minister of Transport Le Dinh Tho said that currently, many vehicle owners are wondering whether money deposited into transport accounts can be conveniently linked with personal bank accounts or not, and whether money in transport accounts can be calculated with interest.

He said that this March, the Ministry of Transport will work with the bank to completely resolve the interconnection mechanism. In particular, it will encourage the use of e-wallets so that people can feel secure and conveniently use the non-stop toll collection service.

Mr. Nguyen Van Huyen added that according to information from the bank, money in the traffic account will not be charged interest, but in case the VETC investor goes bankrupt, the money in the account will not be lost because it is guaranteed by the bank.

Official vehicles must have Etag

Faced with the reality that many blue and red license plate vehicles (official vehicles) have not yet had their Etags affixed, Minister The said that he will issue a document advising the Prime Minister to issue an urgent directive that in the next 1-2 months, all official vehicles must have their Etags affixed. By June 30 at the latest, all official vehicles must have their Etags affixed.

In addition, the Ministry of Transport will also propose to amend Decree 46 to give priority to vehicles with Etag stickers entering the non-stop toll lane. After December 30, 2019, all vehicles without Etag stickers must queue to go through the cash toll lane, even if there is a long queue.

Intentional violations will be severely punished.

To encourage people to stick Etag cards, the Ministry of Transport will also propose to the Government to direct that within a certain period of time, vehicle owners must stick Etag cards to pay non-stop fees when passing through BOT stations.

It is even possible to coordinate with the car manufacturer so that after selling the car, the car owner must have the Etag card available.