Claims that office and school hour changes have helped ease traffic congestion are subjective, according to Nguyen The Thao, Chairman of Hanoi People's Committee.

Several solutions have been applied to ease traffic jams in Hanoi

Thao made the comments at a meeting on the issue on March 14 that a survey should be carried out in order to collect assessments before coming to  a final conclusion on the efficiency of the scheme.

According to a report by the municipal Department of Transport, office and school hour changes have helped reduce the number of vehicles on the roads at peak hours but traffic congestion continues to plague the city.

The department’s director, Nguyen Quoc Hung, said “The number of vehicles on the road has decreased by some 5%-15% depending on different locations. However, new traffic congestion hotspots have appeared including on Nguyen Chi Thanh-Kim Ma, Truong Trinh-Ton That Tung, Le Duan-Kham Thien and La Thanh. Traffic users on these streets are mainly civil servants and other employees not affected by policy.

Vice Chairman of the municipal People’s Committee, Nguyen Van Khoi, said that the changes in school and office hours have helped reduce the number of traffic congestion hotspots from a previous 124 to current 79.

Major General Tran Thuy, Deputy Director of the municipal Department of Police noted that around 10 inner city schools had yet to comply with the new changes, and advocated that the Ministry of Education and Training should apply measures to hasten their implementation.

“School and office hour changes are regarded as an effective solution to traffic congestion. The situation would be considerably improved in the next three to four years if the city applies comprehensive methods,” said an official from Ministry of Transport’s Institute of Transport Strategy and Development.

In order to improve enforcement, Vice Chairman of the municipal People’s Committee, Nguyen Van Khoi, said the city would propose that the Ministry of Education and Training take drastic measures to force schools to adopt the measures.

The municipal Department of Education and Training was seeking approval from the city government to allow schools in some districts with better traffic flows including Tay Ho, Tu Liem, Thanh Tri and Hoang Mai to be more flexible over their timetables.