The department's Urban Traffic Management Unit 1, which is in charge of making the new designs, said the current plates are not well-designed, and the street names are too small to see from a distance. The plates are only 50cm in length and 30cm in height, and letters are 8cm in height.
The plates cannot contain the word Duong (road) and the street name, especially for names with more than six letters.
Ha Le An, deputy chief of the Unit 1's Technique Infrastructure Management Office, said his unit would work with the HCM City Communist Youth Union to launch a street nameplate design contest for finding the best design for city streets.
The new plates will be 97cm in length and 25cm in height to cover long street names with 9-cm high letters.
The word "road" will be abbreviated RD on the right corner of the plate to make it easier for foreigners to understand.
Unit 1 has chosen corrugated steel as the new material for the nameplates.
After the contest, the Transport Department will install new plates on main streets for an experiment, and then on most streets in the city, An said./.
