7th Session, 15th National Assembly

Accordingly, at the meeting, the National Assembly listened to the report on explanation, acceptance and revision of the draft Road Law by the Standing Committee member of the National Assembly, Chairman of the National Assembly's Committee on National Defense and Security, Le Tan Toi. After the National Assembly discussed a number of contents with different opinions of the draft Road Law, the submitting agency and the agency in charge of the review coordinated to explain and clarify a number of issues raised by National Assembly deputies.

The National Assembly Electronic Information Portal continuously provides information on the content of the meeting:

08:24: Delegate Ta Thi Yen - National Assembly Delegation of Dien Bien Province: Create conditions for ride-sharing services with less than 10 seats to operate

Regarding Clause 10, Article 56, the draft Law stipulates that for the type of passenger transport business under contract, the transport business unit is only allowed to sign a passenger transport contract with the transport hirer who needs to rent the entire vehicle, meaning that each contract vehicle can only carry one passenger or a single group of passengers. Delegate Ta Thi Yen said that the Drafting Committee's provision aims to prevent the situation of hiding under the guise of contract vehicles to conduct inter-provincial passenger transport business on fixed routes. However, this is inadvertently limiting a type of passenger transport that is popular in many other countries, which is the model of sharing contract vehicles with less than 10 seats through online ride-hailing platforms.

Delegate Ta Thi Yen realized that this model brings many benefits to society, because it can maximize the number of people traveling in one trip, thus helping to significantly reduce traffic on the road and partly solve traffic congestion.

Therefore, the delegate suggested that the Drafting Agency and the Agency in charge of reviewing and adjusting Clause 10, Article 56, in the direction of both controlling the situation of "illegal vehicles and stations", but still creating conditions for ride-sharing services with less than 10 seats to operate. Delegate Ta Thi Yen said 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.

Moderating and suggesting some focused contents for discussion, Vice Chairman of the National Assembly Tran Quang Phuong said that the Road Law project is a law project that the National Assembly and the Government have actively and carefully prepared for a long time. Based on the opinions of National Assembly deputies, the National Assembly Standing Committee and the Government have conducted thorough research to absorb and revise the draft law, reported to clarify issues of concern to National Assembly deputies, and absorbed the opinions of National Assembly delegations, full-time National Assembly deputies, and relevant agencies according to regulations.

The draft law dossier has been fully prepared, clearly demonstrating the process of serious research and acceptance. Based on the submitted dossier, the Vice Chairman of the National Assembly requested that delegates give their opinions on key contents such as: scope of regulation, road infrastructure, expressways, transport activities, state management of road activities, and other issues of interest to delegates.

8:01: Member of the Standing Committee of the National Assembly, Chairman of the National Assembly's Committee on National Defense and Security presents the Report on explanation, acceptance and revision of the draft Law on Roads

On behalf of the National Assembly Standing Committee, reporting on the explanation, acceptance and revision of the draft Road Law, Chairman of the National Defense and Security Committee Le Tan Toi said that at the 6th Session of the 15th National Assembly, the National Assembly Deputies discussed and gave their opinions on the draft Road Law. Based on the opinions of the National Assembly Deputies, the National Assembly Standing Committee directed the Standing Committee of the National Defense and Security Committee (UBQPAN) to coordinate with the drafting agency, the National Assembly agencies and relevant agencies to study, accept and revise the draft Law and develop a draft Report on explanation, acceptance and revision.

The draft Road Law submitted to the National Assembly for discussion at the 7th Session has 86 articles, 6 articles less than the draft Law submitted by the Government; the content of 82 articles has been revised, 7 articles have been removed, and the content of some articles has been combined to form new articles, and the positions of 3 articles have been rearranged.

Regarding general provisions, Chairman of the National Defense and Security Committee Le Tan Toi said that the majority of National Assembly deputies basically agreed with the scope of regulation and the provisions in Chapter I of the draft Law; some National Assembly deputies proposed to continue reviewing to clearly define and avoid overlapping with the scope of regulation of the Law on Road Traffic Order and Safety; proposed to amend Article 1 in a concise and general direction. Proposed to review regulations on interpretation of terms, transfer some contents of the nature of interpretation of terms in the articles to Article 2; review regulations on road network planning, road infrastructure planning, local road systems, urban roads; road databases; intelligent traffic systems to ensure consistency, feasibility, savings and efficiency.

Based on the opinions of the National Assembly Deputies, the National Assembly Standing Committee has directed the reception and revision of the provisions of the draft Law. Regarding the intelligent transportation system, the National Assembly Standing Committee finds that this is a new content and has changed and developed rapidly. If specific regulations are provided in the draft Law, it will not be practical. Therefore, the National Assembly Standing Committee proposes to only stipulate general principles and assign the Government to specify details. At the same time, it proposes that the National Assembly move this content to Article 40 of the draft Law.

Regarding road infrastructure, the National Assembly Standing Committee has directed to absorb and make maximum adjustments according to the opinions of National Assembly deputies, focusing on the provisions in Article 8 (classification of roads by management level), Article 12 (land fund for road infrastructure), Article 15 (road safety corridor), Article 16 (use of land in road safety corridor), Article 28 (investment and construction of works belonging to road infrastructure), Article 31 (handover and putting road works into operation)...

Regarding the regulations on investment, construction, management, operation, exploitation and maintenance of road infrastructure, the Standing Committee of the National Assembly directed to supplement and revise Article 8 to determine the responsibilities of entities in road management, on that basis, revise Articles 28 and 37 of the draft Law to determine the responsibilities of investment, construction, management, operation, exploitation and maintenance of road infrastructure in the direction of citing the provisions in Article 8. Regarding financial resources for investment, construction, management, operation, exploitation and maintenance of road infrastructure and revenue from road infrastructure, accepting the opinions of National Assembly deputies, the Standing Committee of the National Assembly directed to revise Clause 2, Article 42 to be consistent with the provisions of the State Budget Law.

Regarding expressways, although expressways are a technical level of roads, they have their own requirements for investment, construction, standards, technical regulations, and management, operation, exploitation, and maintenance activities. Therefore, the construction of a separate chapter is to specify these contents to ensure the legal basis and feasibility for investment, construction, management, operation, exploitation, and maintenance of expressways.

Regarding the proposal to add some specific regulations on technical requirements for highways, the National Assembly Standing Committee proposed to assign the Minister of Transport to stipulate in the technical standards for highways to ensure compliance with practice and authority.

Regarding the regulations on expanding and upgrading highways, the National Assembly Standing Committee has directed the revision to be consistent with the provisions of the law on construction, the law on public investment, the law on investment under the public-private partnership method... and consistent with reality to create a legal basis to attract financial resources for investment activities to expand and upgrade existing roads into highways or highways invested in on a phased scale.

Regarding transportation activities, Chairman of the National Defense and Security Committee Le Tan Toi said that, taking into account the opinions of National Assembly deputies, the National Assembly Standing Committee has revised the regulations in Chapter IV in the direction of reviewing and ensuring consistency with the provisions of the draft Law on Road Traffic Order and Safety, focusing only on regulations on the management of transportation business activities, the responsibilities of entities in transportation business activities and services supporting road transportation activities.

Regarding state management of road activities, accepting the opinions of National Assembly deputies, the National Assembly Standing Committee has added a provision in Clause 2, Article 83 of the draft Law to ensure consistency with the draft Law on Road Traffic Order and Safety, because the inspection of training, testing, granting of driving licenses and vehicle inspection in the People's Army and the People's Public Security are carried out by the Ministry of National Defense and the Ministry of Public Security.

Regarding the proposal to regulate that Road Inspectors are allowed to stop vehicles for handling, Chairman of the National Defense and Security Committee Le Tan Toi said that in order to ensure consistency and avoid overlapping functions and tasks between the Traffic Police and the Road Inspectorate, and to avoid inconvenience to traffic participants when there are many forces with the authority to handle violations on the road, the draft Law stipulates that the Road Inspectorate performs specialized inspection functions, does not conduct inspections or handle violations on the road, and only handles responsibilities through "static" traffic points and through the database; patrolling and handling on the road are carried out by the Traffic Police.

Regarding the effective date, based on the proposal of the drafting agency, the Standing Committee of the National Assembly has directed the acceptance, revision and proposal to the National Assembly to supplement Clause 2, Article 85 of the draft Law, accordingly, the regulations related to the collection of highway usage fees will take effect from October 1, 2024 to promptly organize the implementation of highway usage fee collection activities according to the provisions of this Law.

8:00 a.m.: Vice Chairman of the National Assembly Tran Quang Phuong chaired the meeting.

Chairing the session, Vice Chairman of the National Assembly Tran Quang Phuong said that on the morning of May 21, the National Assembly will discuss the draft Road Law from 8:00 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. The session will be broadcast live on Vietnam National Assembly Television.

Next, Member of the Standing Committee of the National Assembly, Chairman of the National Assembly's Committee on National Defense and Security Le Tan Toi briefly presented the Report on explanation, acceptance and revision of the draft Law.

National Assembly Electronic Information Portal