HCMC short of parking space for container trucks

Almost every day, a section of Vo Chi Cong Street near Phu Huu and Cat Lai ports in Thu Duc City gets crowded with container trucks standing in long lines, waiting for their turn to pick up or deliver goods.

The same situation is reported frequently on Nguyen Duy Trinh Street in the city, as well as National Highway 1 near the border of HCMC and Dong Nai Province, another industrial hub.

Drivers have to park container trucks right on the street as there are no parking lots in the area.

The southern metropolis accounts for the biggest volume of cargo through seaports, with 170 million tons of goods delivered through its ports every year, making up 25 percent of the national volume.

Of all localities in HCMC, Thu Duc City is home to most ports, so it faces the biggest pressure for providing parking lots for container trucks.

Across Thu Duc, more than 100 container parking areas have been formed without any official registration. Most of them make use of farmland that owners rent out to transport firms.

“Truck owners pay the rent every month for drivers to park in those areas. Otherwise, drivers can never find a spot to park as the demand is huge,” said a driver named Nguyen Manh who normally drives container trucks to and from Cat Lat port.

In case drivers cannot find a parking spot, they park on the street even when it is prohibited and pose potential danger to other vehicles, he added.

An unregistered parking lot for container trucks by Vo Chi Cong Street, HCMC, May 2022. Photo by VnExpress/Gia Minh

Lam Dai Vinh, director of Lam Vinh Transportation Co. Ltd in District 4, said his firm has more than 40 container trucks and it costs almost VND100 million ($4,300) every month to hire parking areas.

The cost is high and involves risks of unexpected things that can happen to the vehicles, since the parking areas are not legally built and registered, which means they do not follow any parking safety standards.

However, transport firms will still choose such areas because they cannot afford to invest their own parking lots, Vinh said.

Bui Van Quan, chairman of the HCMC Goods Transport Association, said the city has been lacking parking areas for container trucks for many years now.

In most cases, there are parking areas for trucks at wholesale markets and industrial parks, but those places are only for transport firms to complete the transshipment process and do not function as parking lots.

Do Ngoc Hai, head of the transportation management office under the municipal Department of Transport, said the lack of land is the biggest reason for the shortage of parking areas for container trucks.

He said the department was reviewing several land plots that are qualified to host parking lots built for container trucks.