The traffic light and global integration (posted on Saigontimes weekly

Thanks to my network of friends, I often travel along the country. Hanoi is a historic capital city, but it is small, especially for roads. Recently, Hanoi has established the traffic light system. It seems that this is an automatic control system, because I do not see anyone to operate it. When I visit Nha Trang (my home city ten year ago,) I am surprised because it is a small city, which has about 300,000 people, but the city also established traffic signal on some main roads downtown. A friend, who is working at the Communication and Transportation Department, told me the reasons, "Our city is small, it does not need a traffic signal system indeed. However, we need to train people to get acquaintance to the modern system." In Ho Chi Minh City, where I am living, the traffic signal system has many forms, high and low, old and new. Interestingly, in some main roads, policemen still operate the flows of traffic manually. They use an operational box etablished next to the traffic light to control the flows of traffic. To my knowledge, in order to establish the city traffic system, we need to collect data on the flows of transportation in the city. The interval of red or green lights will be decided depending on the time period of a day and the flows of vehicles. The police, who stands in a corner of a street, can not see the whole system. He can make decision at his cross road but he damages the traffic flows in other points of the city. We can draw the lessons of operating traffic system in Vietnam and view them under the light of the regional, global integration process of the country: Ho Chi Minh City, a big city, but it is still struggle with old and new ways of doing things. Nha Trang is learning to adapt the new life and Ha Noi is courage moving forward! Besides, when the country gradually integrates into an interdependence economic trading system, you can not make decisions without thinking about the others!