Investing in modern, synchronous rest stops on highways

Perspective of Moc An rest stop on Dong Dang-Tra Linh highway.

On highways, rest stops are planned in a synchronous and modern manner, contributing to ensuring traffic safety, becoming a highlight of the landscape, regional culture, and regional socio-economic development.

New "playground"

When researching investment in a transport PPP project, in addition to determining traffic volume, toll revenue, and completion and commissioning time, investors need to have a longer-term vision, calculating the long-term effectiveness of the project through traffic volume and expected revenue in the future. The formed route will attract other groups of investors to develop real estate, industrial parks, rest stops, commercial services, etc., contributing to increasing the operational capacity of the entire route.

In addition to ensuring technical requirements, the aesthetics of the project, along with public utilities, are also factors that need to be focused on to optimize the investment problem and promote project capital recovery. For example, at the Dong Dang-Tra Linh expressway project, since the end of 2020, when it was in the research phase, the People's Committee of Cao Bang province and the research investor organized a competition for architectural design options for the project, aiming to arrange environmentally friendly landscapes, trees, and rest stops with beautiful and convenient architecture, reflecting the typical culture of the locality.

Through the contest, excellent works were selected, with landscape highlights of typical significance such as Mau Son Mountain (Lang Son), Dong Khe Victory Monument (Cao Bang), Ban Gioc Waterfall; the image of a crossbow, a đàn tính, etc. Cao Bang Province and the investor chose the Moc An rest stop on the route with full service facilities, designed according to the model of conical hats of Cao Bang ethnic people, using local materials (bamboo, reed, bare bricks) that are close and friendly to the environment.

Rest stop investment is considered by experts to be a new "playground" in the transport infrastructure investment ecosystem that many businesses are interested in participating in, but there are many advantages for businesses with vision and strengths from existing business activities. A typical case is the Futabuslines-Thanh Hiep Phat Joint Venture, which has just won the bid for 3/4 investment projects to build and operate rest stops on the eastern North-South Expressway sections (Phase I). This joint venture participated in competitive bidding, meeting the conditions to win the bid for three adjacent rest stops on the eastern North-South Expressway section of about 300 km, with very good traffic volume, helping investors optimize and reduce costs when synchronizing the design and management system.

Associate Professor, Dr. Tran Chung, Chairman of the Vietnam Road Transport Construction Investors Association, commented: “The race to win the right to invest in the exploitation of rest stops at the North-South Expressway project is still promising many interesting surprises ahead, but is also full of pitfalls if investors are not alert, planning and building a long-term, methodical business plan for this special field.”

Perspective of Moc An rest stop on Dong Dang-Tra Linh highway.

Four years and three terms

Socializing investment in rest stops is the right way to go, the selected investors all have the capacity and experience to bring high efficiency to society. Experts unanimously recommend that the authorities strengthen the organization of bidding for synchronous rest stop clusters along the entire highway and invest in smart traffic systems to ensure safety and improve the efficiency of exploiting social works. This is also a solution to increase traffic volume, contribute to promoting project capital recovery, and optimize the investment problem of transport projects under the PPP method.

According to Mr. Lam Van Hoang, Director of Vietnam Expressway Administration, implementing the direction of the Government, Prime Minister, Minister of Transport, recently, the Project Management Boards have deployed the construction of a system of temporary rest stops, basically resolving the concerns of people due to the lack of rest stops on newly put into operation expressways, meeting the immediate needs of people traveling on the route. Up to now, 5/8 rest stops of the four eastern North-South Expressway component projects including Mai Son-National Highway 45, Vinh Hao-Phan Thiet, Phan Thiet-Dau Giay, Cam Lam-Vinh Hao have selected investors. It is expected that the selection of investors will be completed, and negotiations and contract signing will be completed in the first half of this July.

In parallel with the contract negotiations, the relevant parties will coordinate with the investor to complete the relevant procedures to start implementing the rest stop project in the spirit of "running while queuing". The Vietnam Expressway Administration also recommends that localities closely coordinate to implement site clearance and handover of construction sites to ensure that the essential items of the rest stop will soon have a clean site for construction. For the remaining rest stops on the eastern North-South Expressway, the Vietnam Expressway Administration is coordinating with relevant parties to complete the procedures and issue bidding documents, ensuring that when the expressway is completed, the rest stops will be put into operation.

Deputy Minister of Transport Nguyen Danh Huy assessed that, to date, the total length of expressways nationwide has exceeded 2,000km. In the past four years, the investment results in expressway construction are equal to the previous three terms combined, demonstrating the great determination of the entire political system to "get involved" in developing transport infrastructure. In order to promote the effectiveness of investment in expressways, the Minister of Transport has resolutely directed and required investors to ensure that when the expressway project "reaches the finish line", all related items such as rest stops, intelligent traffic systems (ITS), non-stop toll collection systems (ETC), etc. must be synchronously completed.

“Regarding the rest stop project, investors/project management boards must review the current site clearance and see what problems are still there. Absolutely do not let people on the road wait for it every day. Currently, the investor has been selected and capital is available, the units must closely coordinate with the locality to clear the site, synchronously deploy items, and put the project into operation soon to serve the needs of the people,” Deputy Minister Nguyen Danh Huy directed.

Source: https://nhandan.vn/dau-tu-tram-dung-nghi-hien-dai-dong-bo-tren-cac-tuyen-duong-cao-toc-post818252.html