As exhaust emissions from billions of vehicles on the road are one of sources of pollutants in big urbans nowadays, HCMC authorities have encouraged city’s bus operators to use environment-friendly vehicles.
As per the Management and Operation Center for Public Transport (MOCPT) under the Department of Transportation in Ho Chi Minh City, the city has around 2,575 different buses with 2,325 subsidized ones.
In order to cut greenhouse gas emissions for environment protection in public transport, since 2014, the Department of Transport and MOCPT have regularly checked vehicles’ emissions and replaced old ones with compressed natural gas (CNG)-fueled buses.
In addition, through checking 58 buses in 2016, transport inspectors issued fines while MOCPT stopped these buses from running until the company owners fixed their polluting vehicles.
Besides, the center in coordination with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) in Vietnam implemented a project on reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in HCMC, using compressed natural gas (CNG) buses.
Moreover, in order to improve the city’s environment, from January 24, 2017, 15 unsubsidized electric buses in four routes were put into operation, each carrying 400 passengers a day. The figure showed that environment-friendly vehicles in the metropolis are supported by passengers especially tourists, said MOCPT.
However, MOCPT director Tran Chi Trung said that higher cost of CNG buses are hindering the operation of such buses. Moreover, it depends much on the only supplier – PV Gas South Company. Therefore, MOCPT petitioned the city administration to discuss with the Vietnam National Oil and Gas Group, commonly known as PetroVietnam (PVN) to have a fixed price on CNG and have more stations to facilitate CNG buses.
Reasonable prices, diversified suppliers and many gas stations are best conditions to encourage enterprises to invest in the environment-friendly vehicles as per the project, said MOCPT.
