A growing density of toll booth on Vietnam's highways has stirred complaints and frustration from drivers.

Hundreds of people in Hoa Binh Province surrounded a toll booth

Hundreds of people in Hoa Binh Province surrounded a booth on Highway 6 and blocked traffic on November 7 in protest against high tolls, which charge VND25,000 for small cars.

"They only upgraded the road and the booth divides the town in half," said Nguyen Van Phuong, a local in Luong Son Town. "We have to pay the toll to go to the market or visit relatives on the other side."

National Assembly deputy Duong Truong Quoc's car was blocked when it reached the toll booth. He was only allowed to go through after promising to bring the issue to the Ministry of Transport and the National Assembly.

Hoang Trung Hai, deputy minister of transport, has asked authorities of Hoa Binh and investors to quickly deal with the problem.

There are 96 toll booths planed for new highways nationwide, 45 of which have opened and a further 51 to be completed with new road works by 2018. Car drivers have been complaining both about the high number of toll booths as well as the tolls.

There are concerns that the cost of transporting produce to market will mean higher prices.

Those toll booths are operating under Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) contracts, under which tolls collected are retained by the building contractor until the project is paid for, after which revenue goes to the state.

Due to the high density of existing toll booths and future projects, the government asked the Ministry of Transport and localities to review the procedures, the fees and to make sure that the distance between stations be at least 70km. The Ministry of Transport proposed to relocate two toll booths in Ha Tinh Province and Danang City because of the violation of the minimum distance.

Under circular 90 issued in 2004, two-wheeled motorcycles pay VND1,000 at each toll booth, with four-wheeled vehicles paying VND10,000 to VND80,000, depending on size, but the toll charged can be twice the regulated fee.