Vehicles will be allowed to travel at up to 120kph on the Ho Chi Minh City-Long Thanh-Dau Giay Expressway next month, a 20 percent rise from the current limit, the road’s management agency has announced.

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After securing approval from the Ministry of Transport, the Vietnam Expressway Services Engineering Joint Stock Company, which manages the expressway, has decided to increase the maximum speed for vehicles from 100kph to 120kph, the company said on Wednesday. The speed increase is aimed at enhancing the efficiency of the road, the firm added. But all vehicles will have to travel at 100kph at most when they cross the Long Thanh bridge on the expressway, it noted. In order to ensure safety for people and vehicles traveling on the road when the new speed cap is applied, Nguyen Viet Tan, director of the company, advised that drivers should carefully examine their vehicle’s tires and avoid using expired tires. Drivers should also check their vehicles for other safety conditions and never overload them under any circumstance. The four-lane expressway is 55km long and 27.5 meters wide, running from Ho Chi Minh City through Long Thanh District in nearby Dong Nai Province to reach Dau Giay Town, also in Dong Nai. The construction of the expressway began in October 2009, with a total investment of more than VND20.63 trillion (US$970.8 million) sourced from the Asian Development Bank and the Japan International Cooperation Agency. The first 20-km section of the road, which cost VND2.43 trillion ($114.35 million), was open to traffic on August 28, 2014, spanning Outer Belt II in District 9, Ho Chi Minh City, and National Highway 51 in Long Thanh. The section helps cut short the distance from the city to the resort city of Vung Tau from 120km to 95km and reduce the travel time from two hours and thirty minutes to only 80 minutes, according to the Vietnam Expressway Corporation (VEC). Similarly, the distance from Ho Chi Minh City to Long Thanh District is shortened from 45km to 22km and the travel time cut down from 60 minutes to only 20 minutes, the VEC said.

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