Ho Chi Minh City’s first river bus will offer services for free in 10 days as a plan to promote new kind of public transport to people.
The route was opened on 25th November after a short delay. As original plan, first river bus should operate in the ends of October. “Because it is the first river bus, we want to make sure the service is as user-friendly and convenient for passengers as possible” explained by the city’s transport department.
After 10 free trails day, tickets will be sold with the price of 15,000 VND for whole journey, doesn’t matter which stop you get on or off. “With this price, we made every effort to attract passengers and tried to keep the cost for a long time,” said Mr. Tran Kim Toan, Director of Thuong Nhat Limited Company, the investor of the project.
There are 5 ships with 75 seats on each serve this route. Four of these runs daily while one in reserve.
Pilots and staffs had to join training program nearly one year before open date.
A one-way journey over the entire route will take about 30 minutes with maximum 3 minutes stop at each wharf. Total length of first route is 10.8 kilometer route with 12 wharves, nine official wharves and three additional ones.