Refining regulations on cost norms and unit prices for expressway maintenance in Vietnam

Abstract

This paper focuses on refining regulations on cost norms and unit prices for expressway maintenance in Vietnam in the context of the rapid development of the national expressway network. Maintenance plays a critical role in ensuring the quality, safety, and service life of expressway infrastructure. However, the current system of cost norms and unit prices applied to maintenance activities still presents several limitations and has not fully met practical requirements. In particular, there is a lack of cost norms for specialized maintenance tasks related to intelligent transportation systems (ITS), traffic operation centers, and electronic toll collection (ETC) systems. In addition, existing regulations on prices of construction materials, labor, machinery, and equipment used in maintenance works are not fully consistent with market conditions or recent updates in technical standards. To address these issues, the paper proposes several solutions aimed at refining regulations on cost norms and unit prices in order to improve the effectiveness of expressway maintenance cost management in Vietnam.