HCM City could save as much as 30 per cent of the energy it spends on transportation if it develops an efficient public transport system, a conference on energy saving heard yesterday.
With its public transport inefficient, people prefer private vehicles to buses, sending fuel consumption soaring as the number of private motorbikes and automobiles increases relentlessly.
The city of 10 million now have more than five million motorbikes and 500,000 cars and the numbers are expected to continue to skyrocket.
Figures from customs show that last year nearly five million tonnes of fuel were consumed for transportation, up from less than four million tonnes just three years earlier.
The city’s Department of Transport admits that public transport can meet only 6 per cent of demand.
An official from the department, who spoke at the seminar, said thus there was a potential to reduce energy use by 30 per cent.
Huynh Kim Tuoc, head of HCM City Energy Conservation Centre, said: “A person who chooses to travel by motorbike consumes five times the fuel compared to someone who travels by public transport.”
Le Trung Tinh, head of the Road Transport Management Division, said the city could save VND26 billion (US$1.2 million) a day if each motorbike saved half a litre of fuel and each car, one litre.
Solutions
Tuoc said: “We should learn from Japan and other countries in developing public transport. Japan … regulates that all cars in the country should consume less than six litres of fuel for 100km.
“It motivates producers to improve technology.”
The bar would be raised after five years to make it below four litres per 100km, he said.
Duong Hong Thanh, deputy head of the department, said saving energy was a pressing issue for the city government since fossil fuels were running out.
His department planned to adopt several measures to save energy in the transport sector.
It would switch to fuel-efficient buses and also instruct all transport operators and vehicle owners to maintain their vehicles properly to reduce fuel consumption.
The department had recommended that the city replaced 1,680 old buses with efficient CNG-fuelled vehicles starting this year.
The two-year programme was awaiting approval from the city government.
More than half the bus fleet had been installed with black-box data recorders – and the rest would have them by early next year – to improve oversight of their operations and save energy.
Every year Viet Nam spent 20 per cent of its GDP on energy, which was more than the contribution of the agriculture sector to the nation’s economy.
The transport sector consumed 20 per cent of this.
The country ranks 38th in the world in the use of fuel for transport.
