After over 10 years of construction, Ho Chi Minh City’s metro line No. 1 successfully conducted a test run on Wednesday, marking a significant landmark of the first metro project in Vietnam’s southern economic hub.

The trial run was conducted at 10:00 am that day following a ceremony which was attended by municipal Party Committee Secretary Nguyen Van Nen, Chairman of the city’s administration Phan Van Mai, Japanese Ambassador to Vietnam Yamada Takio, Japanese Consul General to the city Watanabe Nobuhiro, and Chief Representative of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) Vietnam Office Shimizu Akira, among other participants.

The pilot run, the first so far, was conducted using a train with three cars which traveled a distance of nine kilometers from Suoi Tien Coach Station to Binh Thai Station in Ho Chi Minh City’s Thu Duc City, part of the elevated section of the metro line.

It passed by Vietnam National University - Ho Chi Minh City, Hi-Tech Zone Station, and Thu Duc Station during test run.

The line has 17 Japanese-made trains, with 51 cars in total, and can run at up to 110 kilometers per hour above the ground and 80 kilometers per hour underground.

However, the project’s contractor, Japan’s Hitachi, operated the test run at under 40 kph for safety reasons.

Each metro train is 61.5 meters long and can accommodate 930 passengers, including 147 sitting and 783 standing.

All the trains have been tested successfully at Long Binh Depot in the city since August.  

Currently, the project boasts a completion rate of 93.6 percent.

Kazuhiko Nagasawa, Hitachi’s project manager for the metro line, said Hitachi and its subcontractors are preparing to mobilize their resources in order to continue installing and testing the metro line’s systems. 

He sincerely thanked the Vietnamese government for giving Hitachi the opportunity to work on the important and memorable project.

Hitachi is committed to making every effort needed to complete the project as soon as possible, Nagasawa said.

Nguyen Quoc Hien, deputy head of the City Urban Railway Management Board (MAUR), the project’s investor, affirmed that the investor and contractor will use all of their resources to continue accelerating the project so that it can be put into operation in late 2023.

“2023 is the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Vietnam and Japan. Therefore, striving to complete the project is a very important highlight in the friendly diplomatic ties between the two countries,” Hien commented.

Among the people who witnessed the groundbreaking of the project 10 years ago, 55-year-old Trinh Ngoc Tu expressed his hope that the metro line would be put into operation soon in order to relieve congestion in the city’s gateway area and contribute to modernizing the municipal transport system.

One of the passengers on board the pilot train was 86-year-old Le Van Ninh, who said, “The train is very beautiful and runs smoothly, but the project has been going on for so long that my hair has turned gray. I once made a wish to live until I could take a trip on this train. That dream has come true."

Metro line No. 1, the first of the city’s eight planned urban railway projects, broke ground in August 2012 with a total investment of VND43,700 billion (US$1.84 billion), most of which comes from Japan’s official development assistance (ODA) aid, according to MAUR.

The line is 19.7 kilometers long, including 2.6 kilometers of underground railway and 17.1 kilometers of elevated track.

It runs from Ben Thanh Market in District 1 to Suoi Tien Theme Park in Thu Duc City through three underground stations and 11 stops above the ground.

The metro line’s trains will be tested on the entire route next year, MAUR said.

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