The devices will be introduced on the 55-kilometre Ho Chi Minh City - Dau Giay section of the route from Ho Chi Minh City to Can Tho, a city in Mekong Delta. The Ho Chi Minh City - Dau Giay section is part of Vietnam's North - South Expressway and was completed with loan assistance from Japanese government.
The devices are part of an order for Intelligent Transportation Systems received from the Vietnam Expressway Corporation by a joint venture formed by Toshiba Corporation, Hitachi Limited and ITOCHU Corporation.
MHI will deliver the ETC system devices to Innovative Technology Development Corporation (ITD Corporation) of Vietnam, which has an equipment procurement contract with the joint venture company. They have also concluded a manufacturing and sales agreement with ITD Corporation for the ETC on-board units and antennas.
The ETC system on order uses active-type dedicated short-range communication (Active DSRC), the standard ETC system specification in Japan. In addition to highway toll collection, the highly scalable system is also capable of providing various traffic related information. MHI previously conducted trial operations of the system in Malaysia.
To support its rapidly expanding economy, Vietnam plans to construct a total of approximately 6,000 kilometres of expressway. It also seeks to mitigate traffic congestion caused by the increasing number of vehicles that are on the nation's roads.
Leveraging the order for the ETC system for Vietnam, MHI looks to win orders in ETC related projects in the country. At the same time, the company will also strengthen marketing activities of the Japanese standard ETC system globally, especially in countries and regions that are considering the introduction of such a system.