Facilitate the operation of ride-sharing services with less than 10 seats

Delegate Ta Thi Yen, Deputy Head of the Delegation Work Committee, National Assembly Delegate of Dien Bien province, expressed her opinion on the draft Road Law.

Participating in the speech, delegate Ta Thi Yen, Deputy Head of the Delegation Work Committee, National Assembly delegate of Dien Bien province, requested the drafting agency and the agency in charge of reviewing and adjusting Clause 10, Article 56 of the draft Law in the direction of both controlling the situation of "illegal vehicles and bus stations", but still creating conditions for ride-sharing services with less than 10 seats to operate.

Clause 10, Article 56 of the draft Law stipulates that “Passenger transport business under contract is a type of passenger transport business using passenger cars, four-wheeled passenger vehicles with engines to transport passengers under a paper or electronic transport contract between a passenger transport business unit and a transport hirer who needs to hire the entire vehicle, including hiring a driver”. According to this provision, each contracted vehicle trip can only carry one passenger or a single group of passengers.

The Deputy Head of the Delegation Affairs Committee said that the Drafting Committee proposed this regulation to prevent the practice of hiding under the guise of contract vehicles to conduct inter-provincial passenger transport business on fixed routes. However, such a regulation is unintentionally restricting a popular form of passenger transport in many other countries, which is the model of sharing contract vehicles with less than 10 seats through online ride-hailing platforms. Basically, this model allows different passengers with the same route but different pick-up and drop-off points to travel together on the same vehicle. Passengers will enjoy cheaper travel fares, and drivers will also increase their income due to the increase in the number of passengers on a trip.

This model brings many benefits to society, because it can maximize the number of people traveling in one trip, thus significantly reducing traffic on the road. These impacts will contribute to reducing pressure on infrastructure and partly solving traffic congestion. In addition, this model will also contribute to reducing environmental pollution. In Hanoi today, the amount of fine dust from vehicles accounts for up to 25% of the total dust emissions into the air in the city.

According to delegate Ta Thi Yen, the ride-sharing model will also help reduce carbon emissions from transportation activities in general by reducing the number of vehicles on the road. In the long term, reducing carbon emissions will contribute positively to combating climate change and improving air quality in major cities, as well as contributing to the goal of net zero emissions by 2050, as Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh committed at the COP26 Conference in 2021.

“International practice is the same, people can absolutely travel together on the same route to share transportation service costs. Usually there is no special management for ride-sharing services. These services are often managed as a type of contract car service, personal rental car thanks to the superiority of this type of service, especially the service price factor, meeting the travel needs of traffic participants” - delegate Ta Thi Yen shared.

The delegate affirmed that this is also a practical way to implement the Party's guidelines and policies and the State's policies in gradually restricting personal vehicles, developing public passenger transport, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and using social resources reasonably and effectively to develop the country quickly and sustainably.

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