Deputy Head of the HCMC Traffic Safety Committee Nguyen Ngoc Tuong said that traffic in the city improved much last year.
He continued solutionsfor traffic congestion proved effective especially in holidays and festivals. The city yielded good achievement in applying smart technologies to reduce traffic gridlock and control traffic.
He also mentioned the project to build HCMC into a smart city from 2017 to 2020 with a vision to 2025 in the field of transport comprises of two phases.
The first phases from 2018 to 2020 has basically set up an integrated traffic monitoring and control center which provides information about traffic and support for a better handling of violations, and help reduce traffic congestion and accidents in big roads in the city’s downtown.
In the second phase after 2020, the traffic monitoring and control center will be completed to supervise traffic citywide. Moreover, the portal of traffic and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technologies will be more used for management of traffic. Besides, the city will apply premier GIS and database management system for traffic infrastructure maintenance.
The integrated traffic monitoring and control center has been operational with 762 roadway surveillance and traffic cameras; 136 special cameras for traffic flow measurement; 216 traffic light management boxes in 78 key roads; 70 electronic traffic boards and nine automatic speed stations.
Residents can search traffic condition in their smartphone apps or websites. Furthermore, the city has piloted electronic smartcard for bus users with the orientation of an electronic ticket system for public transportation.
Speaking at the meeting, Khuat Viet Hung, vice chairman of the National Traffic Safety Committee illustrated the city’s better traffic with numbers. For instance, he said, in 2010 and earlier, around 12,000 people were killed by traffic accidents annually but around 8,000 people were killed by traffic accidents in 2018 and the number will be below 8,000 this year.
In ten past months, the number of traffic accident casualty reduced by 5.33 percent nationwide. In HCMC alone, the number of traffic accident casualty reduced by 10 percent, he added.
Chairman of the city People’s Committee Nguyen Thanh Phong highly spoke of relevant agencies’ determined efforts and applications of smart technologies, completion of major traffic construction in the battle to reduce road traffic deaths.
He ordered the municipal Department of Transport to encourage individuals and teams that have had good solutions to manage traffic and reduce traffic deaths. Competent agencies need to come up with solutions to solve black spots on roads, or dangerous areas where traffic accidents consistently occur, to keep traffic safety order with the aim to turn Ho Chi Minh City into a more rewarding place to live in.
In the meeting, 49 persons and teams that have greatly contributed to the city’s traffic safety order were awarded.
