HCM City bus services slow to recover post-pandemic

HCM City bus services have witnessed lower passenger numbers since the Covid-19 pandemic.

Nguyen Thi Thanh from District 7 said that it takes her up to an hour by bus from her home to her office which is around 10 kilometres compared to 40 minutes by bike. So she rarely goes to work by bus.

Nguyen Thi Ngon from Binh Chanh said Bus 38 doesn’t have a conductor. When she asked the driver he said that due to low passenger numbers, the company had cut staffing.

According to a local bus driver, buses can’t maintain their schedule due to traffic congestion, particularly at peak hours. This obviously discouraged passengers. Meanwhile, pickpocketing has remained a thorny issue on many bus routes. For instance, passengers complained about the problem on the 91 route. Buses just have drivers.

Buses however remain popular with low-income people and the elderly. Nguyen An Tan said that it costs him just VND40,000 to travel from Cu Chi District to the city centre.

Driver Nguyen Van Thu said that to attract more passengers, the city needs to improve roads to ease traffic jams.

HCM City is home to 126 bus routes with a total of 2,100 vehicles. Since 2014, the city’s number of bus passengers has recorded an annual fall of 6.65 percent. Some 225 million bus journeys were recorded in 2019, down 12.1 percent on-year. The figure dropped to 53 million in 2021.