On Thursday, Vice Chairman of the Da Nang People's Committee Dang Viet Dung worked with representatives of the Toyota Mobility Foundation (TMF) to review the implementation of the urban traffic improvement project in the city.

Funded by TMF, the 2.8 million USD project has been implemented in the city since July 2015, and it is expected to be completed in September.

The purpose of the project is to improve traffic flows in urban areas. In turn, this should contribute to raising the living standards of local residents.

Under the project, 8 TMF-funded buses have been put into operation since July 2017. As of December 2018, these buses had served more than 130,000 passengers in total. The rate of people who take the buses has increased from 2% to 43%.

As the project will end in September, TMF will introduce the city to on-demand-bus (ODB) transit service under the help of the Swat Consulting Company with the intention of enhancing the efficiency and the quality of public transport service.

ODB is a new technological transport service, which helps passengers save their waiting and travel time and lower their travel costs, as well as ensures the safety of bus users.

According to the Swat company, the ODB service allows customers to select pick-up and drop-off points, and book buses via an IT application.

During the meeting, Vice Chairman Dung praised TMF for its new transport service which is suitable with the city’s progress in the context of building Da Nang into a smarter city in the future.

He also asked TMF to join forces with the municipal authorities to organise a seminar to evaluate the efficiency of the project and implement the project in the city soon.

In addition, the city leader took the opportunity to ask for financial assistance from TMF to help the city implement some public traffic projects with a focus on building smart parking areas and installing public traffic signal systems.