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Electric motorbike PT service to be trialled in Ho Chi Minh City

Posted: 19 November 2019 | | No comments yet

HCMC Transport Department Director Tran Quang Lam believes this additional transport mode could help to solve congestion and pollution within the city formerly known as Saigon.

Ho Chi Minh City

An electric motorbike public transport service is due to be launched in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

The Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) Transport Department plans to begin the trial of the service at the end of this year.

This introduction of an additional mode of shared transport aims to limit the use of personal vehicles, reduce congestion and lower levels of pollution in the city.

The electric motorbike service will be delivered jointly by the HCMC Transport Department and Grab Vietnam, the local unit of the Singapore based ride hailing company, who signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) detailing the agreement earlier in November 2019.

It is designed to support the city’s public transport system in ‘downtown’ areas. If successful, the pilot could see the service being extended further, throughout the entire city, by as soon as the end of 2020.

Grab Vietnam will oversee data collection, including the journeys of all vehicles registered with its ride hailing service. They will then share this data with the HCMC Transport Department to enable them to create a ‘traffic database’.

The department hopes that this database will allow greater analysis and prediction of traffic on particular routes within the city. The MoU states that the department will also coordinate with Grab Vietnam’s fleet of vehicles to create new solutions to address the city’s current traffic issues.

There are also potential plans to introduce an electric bike rental service in the near future.

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