Bus route D4 linking Vinhomes Grand Park and Saigon Bus Station was put into operation in March last year by VinBus Ecology Transport Services Limited Liability Company (VinBus), the transport services arm of conglomerate Vingroup.

The service operates from 5 am to 9:15 pm daily, with a service every 20 minutes. The ticket is VND7,000 (USD0.3) per passenger and VND3,000 (USD0.13) per student.

Each bus can transport between 65-70 passengers.

According to the HCM City Transport Department, in the first six months of this year, 19,000 D4 trips were conducted, carrying a total of 525,400 passengers.

Between January and June, each trip on the route attracted 27.6 passengers with revenues of VND154,000 (USD4.42) compared to running costs of VND702,000. The budget subsidy for each trip is VND309,800. Meaning each trip made a loss of around VND238,000.

Roughly 100 D4 bus services are operated, meaning a total of VND22.8 million.

The HCM City Department of Transport has proposed raising the budget subsidy rate for electric bus routes to 64.8 percent from the current 44.1 percent this year to help ease difficulties for them.

VinBus has approval from HCM City authorities to run five electric bus routes. All of them were scheduled to be put into use last year. But, to date, only the D4 route has become operational, while the four others have been delayed until the fourth quarter of this year.

Source: Dtinews