Vietnam to introduce rest stops on expressways

In a scheme approved recently by the government to develop road traffic infrastructure in 2021-2030 and with a vision until 2050, the Ministry of Transport has added items toward building rest stops on several expressways.

Until now, the plan has only covered national highways.

Opened in April after 13 years of construction, Trung Luong – My Thuan Expressway runs 51 kilometers through the Mekong Delta province of Tien Giang to extend the only expressway linking Ho Chi Minh City with the delta region.

The section, however, has zero rest stops as Tien Giang has yet to decide whether to organize bidding to choose a new investor or let the expressway investor build those.

Set to open to traffic next week, a 176-kilometer expressway section running through Quang Ninh Province to link Ha Long Bay with the Chinese border at Mong Cai is part of the country’s longest expressway. Yet it has no gas stations or rest stops.

The reason is that Quang Ninh has kept adjusting the locations of those stops, which has lengthened the time for completing investment procedures.

The 170-kilometer Bac Giang – Lang Son Expressway opened in 2020 in the north and the 139.2-kilometer Da Nang – Quang Ngai Expressway opened in 2018 in the central region have no rest stops either.

It is because those stops have been separated from the expressway projects and their investors have yet to start work on them.

The Vietnamese Association of Road Traffic Investors (VARSI) proposed that in the upcoming plan for building expressway rest stops, the ministry should regulate who will invest in those stops to ensure consistency.

A government decree on managing and operating expressways said rest stops are part of expressways and therefore, the authority that issues the decision to invest in expressways will decide the investment methods and investors, it suggested.