The rapid growth of operation has brought new challenges and caused new deficits. The number of bus on the road has dramatically increased but maintenance equipments are the same. Therefore the situation is critical in term of pollution and longevity of the vehicles.

With the new depot, built under ASIATRANS, a new system of maintenance can be built up, ensuring safety and performance. A special item is to measure the emissions and introduce standards.

Actions carried out by the project in this regard are:

·         Permanent presence of a European mechanic who is an advisor to the model depot, monitoring and instructing.

·         Organizations of missions and workshops to upgrade the professional skills of the staff of depots

·         Internships for maintenance for two mechanics for 4 weeks in a Europe, internship made available by RATP (Paris Ile-de-France transportation company)

·         Realization of emission tests on buses from all the depots of the city in order to establish an environmental diagnostic.

The new depot and its emission tester device

Study on clean fuel

A study has been carried out in collaboration with RATP experts to examine the possibility of introducing water diesel (mixture of water diesel and an other chemical which reduces consumption and emissions) in Hanoi. It appears that the system used in Paris would be difficult to transfer in Hanoi as it needs cooperation with fuel suppliers which are not interested to work on small scale projects.

A second solution is the installation in the buses of a simple device mixing directly water and diesel. This solution, used in many countries of the world is not as efficient in term of emission reduction but it is particularly adapted to old engines which are numerous in Hanoi. Hanoi EcoTrans is to finance experimental installation of one device.