Local expert
Trading begi
An influx of passengers traveling back to their hometown during the Tet Lunar New Year holiday is overloading the country’s bus transportation.
Starting Sunday, most bus companies started inflating ticket prices by 15 and 20 percent higher than normal days.
According to Le Hai Phong, deputy director of Ho Chi Minh City Center of Public Ground Transportation Management, the number of passengers will increase by 20 percent between January 28 and February 17.
For residents, especially low-income laborers in the city, hustling for weeks was not enough to secure a ticket back home.
Some are forced to accept traveling on overloaded and unsafe buses, while others succumb to buying tickets from the black market at boosted prices.
Nguyen Viet Ha, a Hanoi student who studies tourism at Van Hien University, said she could not procure a high-quality bus seat to Hanoi.
As Tet draws closer, Si, a bricklayer who hails from Nam Dinh Province, said he couldn’t afford staying in the city longer since ticket prices climb higher with each passing day.
At nearly 7 p.m. Saturday, Dam Van Hac and a few other residents of Phu Yen Province failed to purchase appropriate rides after waiting for several hours at the East Region Bus Station located in HCMC’s Binh Thanh District.
Stuffed, stuck
According to the station’s staff, the number of passengers would peak between January 31 and February 4.
This year, the East Region Bus Station operates a total of 3,400 buses running nationwide routes and has issued an additional 400,000 tickets.
An official of the station said the Bureau of Traffic Police from the Ministry of Public Security and the Bureau of Ground Transportation recently discussed ways to prevent transportation companies from overloading passengers.
A common unfair practice of most bus drivers and assistants is to stuff in as many passengers as possible after leaving the bus station.
Moreover, traffic on most routes is expected to worsen, especially on National Highway 1A as buses would stop unexpectedly at junctures to wave passengers in.
Though traffic police have appeared at crowded points to facilitate vehicle flow, circulation from Go Dua intersection to Dong Nai Bridge is highly backed up with unregistered buses popping up throughout the thoroughfare.
Most of these buses target low-income workers at industrial parks in Binh Duong Province and HCMC.
In Hanoi, the bus stations mostly serve routes connecting the city to provinces like Lao Cai, Lang Son and Nghe An.
To limit the number of tickets sold by the black market, Hanoi requires passengers to bring their IDs and only four tickets can be sold to one person.
Hanoi Transportation Corporation announced that it would increase the number of operated buses to 1,080 per day at Giap Bat Bus Station, 570 at Gia Lam Station, and 340 at My Dinh Station.
Source: Thanh Nien, Tuoi Tre
