The HCMC Transport Department has reported that pollution caused by transport activities has become alarming.

There are more than 8 million vehicles in HCMC, including 7 million motorbikes, which produce a huge volume of emission, worsening air pollution and harming people’s health. The figure is 6 million in Hanoi.

Bui Xuan Cuong, director of the HCMC Transport Department, at a working session with the HCMC leaders, reported that the environment monitoring indexes in the second quarter of 2016 were higher than that of the same period of 2015. 

Seven out of 15 spots in the city were reported as having CO increasing by 1.11-2.18 times, while 11 out of 15 spots have dust increasing by 1.02-1.64 times, and eight spots have NO2 going up by 1.02-1.31 times.

If every motorbike consumes 0.5 liters of petrol and every car consumes 1 liter a day, the 7.3 million motorbikes and 600,000 cars in HCMC would consume 4 million liters of fuel and produce a huge volume of emissions.

According to the HCMC Environment Protection Sub-department, air pollution is mostly caused by suspended dust from transport activities. The average content per hour of suspended dust monitored in the third quarter of 2016 in 20 spots in HCM City was between 87.70– 715.93 μg/m3, while 43.75 percent of monitored value could not meet the Vietnamese standard QCVN 05:2013/BTNMT (the concentration of suspended dust is 300 μg/m3 per hour).

The traffic jams in the city make the pollution even worse. The air pollution at Go Vap Roundabout, Nguyen Kiem, Xo Viet Nghe Tinh and Bach Dang streets is more serious because there are too many motorbikes, cars and buses which discharge emissions at the same time. In districts 2, 9 and Thu Duc, the dust sometimes is so thick that it looks like fog.

The same situation can be seen in Hanoi. Tay Son, Truong Chinh, Giai Phong and Nguyen Xien roads are dusty because of the heavy traffic there.

The HCMC Transport Department has proposed to the HCMC People’s Committee to urge the Prime Minister to approve the MOT’s plan to control vehicles’ emission.

Under the plan, MOT will draw up a roadmap for applying emission standards for motor vehicles with the capacity of 175 cm3 and higher in 2018-2020.

MOT initially intended to apply the plan on a trial basis in some large cities before applying it on a large scale in all localities. However, implementation has been delayed for many reasons.

Thanh Mai