According to the municipal Transport Department, the minibuses of between five and 14 seats will operate in some central streets in districts 1, 4, 5, and 6 between 6 am until midnight.
The service investor, Saigon Public Transport Company, proposed that tickets may cost between VND10,000-50,000 depending on the distance. One-day travel passes would cost VND100,000 and fees for a whole bus will be between VND70,000-250,000.
HCM City has piloted three electric bus routes since 2017 using vehicles of 12 seats. However, passenger numbers remained low, so the Mai Linh Company, suspended one of the routes in August 2022.
HCM City now has over 2,000 buses which mostly have between 41-60 seats and operate on 10 metre-wide roads. Meanwhile, around 3,400 out of 5,000 roads are less than seven metres wide.
Roughly 70 percent of residents in HCM City live in small alleys. Therefore, it is quite difficult for many people to use buses.
Associate Prof Pham Xuan Mai, former Head of the Department of Transportation Engineering, Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology said that buses will be among the key means of transport in HCM City by 2030.
The city would need around 3,600-4,500 minibuses to help people access bus stops. It is necessary to shorten the distance to bus stops to below 200 metres.