Transport officials in Ho Chi Minh City have turned to Facebook to hear citizens’ voices on traffic issues at a time when tens of millions of Vietnamese engage in the social networking site each month.

The municipal Department of Transport is running a page on the social service, providing basic information before it is officially launched next month.

The page has been created for a while and it will be debuted at the beginning of March, transport officials said.

The Facebook page has provided some information related to the department, including hotlines of infrastructure management agencies, the hotline of the department itself, the detailed locations of driver’s license offices, and more.

The idea of creating such a page to let citizens give feedback on traffic and transport issues had been considered for a time, said Nguyen Thi Viet Thu, office manager of the department.

Thu added that the team running the department’s website will moderate the Facebook page.

“Comments will be assessed and selected for submission to the department’s head for consideration,” she said.

The Facebook page so far has captured lots of public attention and received positive feedback, as observed by Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper reporters.

Many members of the public have welcomed the page not only as a critical channel for the department to seek solutions to traffic problems in a city notorious for jams more effectively but also as a fundamental bond between the citizens and the department. 

The Facebook page of the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Transport can be accessed here (in Vietnamese only).

Facebook had 30 million monthly active users in Vietnam, with 27 million accessing the social network on their mobile devices, the networking service said last year.

Vietnam is one of Facebook’s fastest-growing markets in Southeast Asia, with the country’s population already topping 90 million and counting.

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