The Vietnam Ministry of Transport is working on a detailed plan to build an elevated monorail system to ease its traffic congestion and connect the existing railway routes in Hanoi.

The proposed project would be developed on a design, build, operate and transfer basis.

A similar project to construct a monorail system in the capital city  was first proposed in 2010 by the Vietnam Construction and Import-Export Corporation (Vinaconex). That project involved the development of a 38-kilometre monorail route in western Hanoi with the initial aim of serving 60,000 passengers daily.

The new project would involve the construction of 14 stations. The trains would run 4.5 metres above the ground at an average speed of 70 kilometres per hour.

Hanoi experienced a rapid construction boom recently. Hanoi's population in 2009 was estimated at 2.6 million for urban districts and 6.5 million for the metropolitan jurisdiction.

Thirty-eight investment projects to be delivered through the public-private partnership (PPP) format in Vietnam have not been able to get off the ground due to the absence of a complete legal framework.

Participants at a training course on PPP infrastructure projects held on March 31st by the Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) Finance and Investment Company, French Development Agency (AFD) and PADDI, a center on urban studies, took issue with the insufficient legal documents for PPP.