Officialshope the new monitoring equipment will improve vehicle owners'awareness and provide monitoring of traffic for government agencies,said Nguyen Van Huyen, Director of the Directorate for Roads of Vietnam.
The National Committee for Traffic Safety will co-ordinate withthe FPT Telecom joint stock company and Hanel one member company tobegin the installation of 74 surveillance cameras and 22 speedmonitoring devices at a cost of 193 billion VND (8.8 million USD).
Surveillancecameras and speed monitoring devices will record violations and datawill be sent to Traffic Police Department's Information Centre and thentransmitted to laptop computers of traffic police who are on duty alongthe route. Penalties will be imposed in accordance with the violationscaught on camera.
Tran Long, a Hanoian, who owns an 8-seatCaptiva car, told a Tin Tuc (News) reporter that he agreed with thepassive fines or a notice being sent to violators, because this not onlyimproves drivers' awareness, but also ensure safer traffic conditions.
"However,to carry out the initiative effectively, all activities, fromdissemination programme to imposing fines, should be implemented in asynchronised and transparent manner," he said.
Hanoi beganimposing passive fines recorded through surveillance in February thisyear, but this measure has not always been effective due to thetime-consuming process for levying administrative fines and problems,such as violators not being owners of vehicles. Other problems includecontacting violators who no longer live where the vehicles wereoriginally registered.
The fact that Decree 171, whichstipulates administrative fines, only applies to vehicle drivers and notthe owner of vehicles makes it difficult for police to impose fines.
Itoften takes a long time to collect administrative fines because, afteridentifying the number plates, address and owners of a violatingvehicle, traffic officers will send a notice to the owners through thelocal police. If the violators fail to pay after receiving the noticefor a third time, traffic police will work with local police to assurethe fine is paid.
To overcome such problems, the Traffic PoliceDepartment has suggested a proposal which allows traffic police to stopvehicles at toll stations and ask drivers to immediately pay thepenalties based on the picture and report of traffic violations on thesystem, said Nguyen Toan Thang, Deputy Director of FPT company.
Accordingto Huyen, the FPT and Hanel companies will be responsible for the costof construction, operation and maintenance of the system. The twocompanies have proposed that they earn back their investment in the formof Built-Transfer-Operate and Built-Own-Operate.
To put thesystem into operation as soon as possible, the FPT Telecom joint stockcompany will release the fund in advance (which includes capital forconstruction, installation, operation and maintenance) and earn back itsinvestment by collecting tolls on these expressways.
Once theirinvestment has been returned, the entire system will be transferred toVietnam Expressway Corporation for management and operation.
Basedon the result of the pilot programme on these expressways, the Ministryof Transport will install similar systems on highways nationwide, Huyensaid.-VNA