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Source: http://tv.tuoitre.vn/tin/900/taxi-duong-song

Graphics: Như Khanh

Talking about this issue, Mr. Nguyen Kim Toan - Director of Daily Company Limited (the Unit has proposed the project) - for more information.
- HCM City has the advantage of nearly 8,000 kilometers of rivers and canals throughout the city by many branches of a river, channels can be exploited waterway passenger transport combine with tourism. We have proposed and the City People's Committee approved in principle a pilot study to build two river bus routes with about 11km routes length for each route: the No. 1 route is from Bach Dang Wharf (District 1) to Linh Dong (Thu Duc District) and the No. 2 route is from Bach Dang Wharf to District 8

* The idea of ​​building river bus had been made ​​without success before. Is this project feasible, sir?
- Since the early of 1990s, experts of the City Department of Transportation and Traffic had proposed river bus routes but failed with various reasons such as no mechanism appropriate investment, the master plan layout space of city was not appropriate to develop river bus, without facilities to attract passengers ...

Up to now, these obstacles have been reduced, replacement of the favorable factors such as transportation needs of the people by river to rise, densely resident areas along the Saigon River has increased, Vo Van Kiet Street have done to facilitate the development of river bus on Ben Nghe channels - Tau Hu channels ...
There are some business operators that exploits service "river taxi" from Bach Dang Wharf (District 1) for employees of companies working in Nhon Trach District (Dong Nai) and Ba Ria-Vung Tau ... but limitations of the "river taxi" is the high ticket price.

* So, how can we apply low river bus fare, while operating costs means of transport by waterway is rather higher than by road?
- River bus fares will be higher road bus due to all costs are higher. The car with 40seats or 45seats, for example, on the 100km road may consume nearly 30 liters of oil. In the meanwhile, a ship with equivalent capacity may consume nearly 200 liters of oil for two engines. Moreover, the initial investment costs, maintenance costs ... of means of transport by waterway are also higher than vehicles running on the road.

However, when making a fare chart, we have to calculate the correlation to the bus on the road. Subsidized bus ticket is now VND4000-5000/ trip, the ticket is not subsidizing about VND 10,000/ trip. For river bus, if the State supports, the fare ranges from VND 10,000 to VND 15,000 / trip.

Also, transport by river bus, passengers will reduce travel distance, time-saving ... Currently, if a staff is in central of HCM City to the factory in Nhon Trach District (Dong Nai) by road takes four hours (if traffic jams), travelling by waterways takes only 45 minutes.

* How will two river bus routes be done if the project is approved?
- Funding for the project over VND 100 billion, of which 70% is loans. Expectation of first time, we will invest in eight vessels with capacity of 80 seats / ship (every river bus route has four river boats). During peak hours can take the capacity of smaller vessels (already available) to operate. We calculated the 50% of capacity, every day two river bus routes will transport near 5,000 passengers, to meet the part of travel needs of city residents.

River buses will operate from 07:00Am to 06:00PM everyday with three types of options for passengers: Green flag bus will travel through all the stations, yellow flag bus only travels through half the number of stations and red flag bus (with the fastest travel time) only travels two stations. 16 stations of the river bus (there are four center terminals and 12 small terminals) will operate additional facilities at ports and connected infrastructure public transport on the road (bus and taxi,..) to enhance the ability combination and service passenger with the best way.

BÁ SƠN Tuoi Tre newspaper

Source: http://tuoitre.vn/Chinh-tri-Xa-hoi/461849/TPHCM-se-co-%E2%80%9Cbuyt-duong-song%E2%80%9D.html