Need to regulate technical standards for highways

The draft Road Law submitted to the National Assembly for discussion at the 7th session has 86 articles, 6 articles less than the draft Law submitted by the Government; the content of 82 articles has been revised, 7 articles have been removed, and the content of some articles has been combined to form new articles, and the positions of 3 articles have been rearranged.

7th Session, 15th National Assembly

Regarding road infrastructure, the Standing Committee of the National Assembly directed to absorb and make maximum adjustments according to the opinions of National Assembly deputies, focusing on the provisions in Article 8 (classification of roads by management level), Article 12 (land fund for road infrastructure), Article 15 (road safety corridor), Article 16 (use of land in road safety corridor), Article 28 (investment and construction of works belonging to road infrastructure), Article 31 (handover and putting road works into operation).

Regarding the regulations on investment, construction, management, operation, exploitation and maintenance of road infrastructure, the Standing Committee of the National Assembly directed to supplement and revise Article 8 to determine the responsibilities of entities in road management, on that basis, revise Articles 28 and 37 of the draft Law to determine the responsibilities of investment, construction, management, operation, exploitation and maintenance of road infrastructure in the direction of citing the provisions in Article 8.

Regarding financial resources for investment, construction, management, operation, exploitation, and maintenance of road infrastructure and revenue from road infrastructure, taking into account the opinions of National Assembly deputies, the National Assembly Standing Committee directed the revision of Clause 2, Article 42 to be consistent with the provisions of the State Budget Law.

Chairman of the National Defense and Security Committee Le Tan Toi.

Regarding expressways, although expressways are a technical level of roads, they have their own requirements for investment, construction, standards, technical regulations, and management, operation, exploitation, and maintenance activities.

Therefore, the construction of a separate chapter to specify these contents is to ensure the legal basis and feasibility for investment, construction, management, operation, exploitation and maintenance of highways.

Regarding the proposal to add some specific regulations on technical requirements for highways, the Standing Committee of the National Assembly proposed to assign the Minister of Transport to stipulate in the technical standards for highways to ensure compliance with reality and authority.

Regarding the regulations on expanding and upgrading highways, the Standing Committee of the National Assembly has directed the revision to be consistent with the provisions of the law on construction, public investment, investment under the public-private partnership method... and in accordance with reality to create a legal basis to attract financial resources for investment activities to expand and upgrade existing roads into highways or highways invested in a phased scale.

Delegate Nguyen Hoang Bao Tran (Binh Duong delegation).

Regarding transportation activities, Chairman of the National Defense and Security Committee Le Tan Toi said that, taking into account the opinions of National Assembly deputies, the National Assembly Standing Committee has revised the regulations in Chapter IV in the direction of reviewing and ensuring consistency with the provisions of the draft Law on Road Traffic Order and Safety, focusing only on regulations on the management of transportation business activities, the responsibilities of entities in transportation business activities and services supporting road transportation activities.

Regarding state management of road activities, accepting the opinions of National Assembly deputies, it was added to Clause 2, Article 83 of the draft Law to ensure consistency with the draft Law on Road Traffic Safety, because the inspection of training, testing, granting of driving licenses and vehicle inspection in the people's army and people's police forces is carried out by the Ministry of National Defense and the Ministry of Public Security.

Regarding the proposal to regulate that road inspectors are allowed to stop vehicles for handling, to ensure consistency, avoid overlapping functions and tasks between the traffic police force and the road inspector force, and avoid inconvenience to traffic participants when there are many forces with the authority to handle violations on the road, the draft Law stipulates that road inspectors perform specialized inspection functions, do not conduct inspections or handle violations on the road, and only handle responsibilities through "static" traffic points and through the database. Patrolling and handling on the road are carried out by the traffic police force.

Delegate Cam Thi Man (Thanh Hoa delegation).

Regarding the effective date, based on the proposal of the drafting agency, the Standing Committee of the National Assembly has directed the acceptance, revision and proposal to the National Assembly to supplement Clause 2, Article 85 of the draft Law, accordingly, the regulations related to the collection of highway usage fees will take effect from October 1, 2024 to promptly organize the implementation of highway usage fee collection activities according to the provisions of this Law.

Proposal to add "high-speed road", distinguishing it from expressway

Commenting on this Law project, delegate Nguyen Van Canh (Binh Dinh delegation) was interested in Article 10 regulating the technical level of roads.

Accordingly, in Clause 2 of this article, the delegate said that high-speed roads are different from highways because they may not have median strips, no escape routes, and traffic organization is similar to national highways. High-speed roads are also different from national highways in that there are no residents on both sides.

Therefore, delegate Nguyen Van Canh proposed that the National Assembly consider adding "high-speed roads" to cover all types of roads and organize traffic appropriately for expressways, high-speed roads and national highways.

Delegate Nguyen Van Canh (Binh Dinh delegation).

Besides, delegate Nguyen Hoang Bao Tran (Binh Duong delegation) said that the construction and completion of the Road Law in recent times is an important legal basis to unlock investment resources for the construction of traffic infrastructure.

In addition to policies prioritizing resources for developing road infrastructure; building mechanisms to promote the mobilization of social resources; methods of investment in construction, management, operation, exploitation, and maintenance of infrastructure... allowing the value of public assets as road infrastructure to not be calculated is a very correct direction, based on practical experiences in the process of organizing investment in construction, renovation, and upgrading of roads.

This is also one of the important contents to remove practical obstacles when implementing PPP projects.

Minister of Transport Nguyen Van Thang listened to the opinions of National Assembly deputies at the discussion session of the Road Law on the morning of May 21.

"Although this regulation is likely to increase the proportion of State capital participating in PPP projects beyond 50% of the total project investment and is different from the provisions of the PPP Law, the specific analysis in the draft Law has solved one of the basic bottlenecks when implementing investment projects to expand, renovate and upgrade infrastructure in general, including road infrastructure under the public-private partnership method," said Ms. Tran.

Specifically, in the context of difficult State budget resources, it is necessary to mobilize maximum social resources, promote renovation, upgrading and expansion of transport infrastructure investment projects under the public-private partnership method.

Besides, to ensure the investment efficiency of some routes that have not been invested in according to the planning scale, it is appropriate and necessary to divide the investment into public investment forms in the next phase.

VOV.VN - National Assembly Standing Vice Chairman Tran Thanh Man said that this session will consider and pass 10 draft laws; 3 draft resolutions on legal norms and discuss and give initial opinions on 11 other draft laws; and consider the investment policy for the project to build the North-South Expressway in the West, the Gia Nghia (Dak Nong) - Chon Thanh (Binh Phuoc) section.

Source: https://vov.vn/chinh-tri/quoc-hoi/luat-duong-bo-can-quy-dinh-quy-chuan-ky-thuat-duong-cao-toc-post1096520.vov