The Vietnam Construction Import-Export Corporation (Vinaconex) has submitted to the Prime Minister a plan to build a monorail route in Hanoi to deal with traffic jams in the western region.

The Vietnam Construction Import-Export Corporation (Vinaconex) has submitted to the Prime Minister a plan to build a monorail route in Hanoi to deal with traffic jams in the western region.

HCM City looks to ODA for urban transport development

According to the plan, the monorail will run overhead at the separation line of the road from Hoang Hoa Tham to Van Cao – Nguyen Chi Thanh – Tran Duy Hung to the end of Lang-Hoa Lac highway, totaling 38 kilometers.

Along this route, pillars of 1m in diameter, 45m high, 30m from each others will be built to prop up the monorail. The train can run at 60 to 70km per hour.

This monorail route will have 14 stations, and it can transport around 60,000 passengers a day.

Dang Hoang Huy, general director of Vinaconex Xuan Mai, the project developer, said that monorail is appropriate to cities because it doesn’t require large space. The train can run through buildings by overpasses or underground.

Huy said that the ticket price will be low, affordable by government employees, students, and others. However, the length of time for regaining investment capital will be around several decades.

According to Vinaconex Xuan Mai, the capital required to build one kilometer of monorail is estimated at $8 million compared to $40-50 million for one kilometer of normal rail. However, experts said that monorail capacity is lower than normal rail.

The government has told the Ministry of Transport to make a feasibility report for this project.

PV