Under the proposal recommended by the Saigon Public Transport Ltd. Co., around 200 electric buses with between 5-14 seats and a maximum speed of 30 km per hour will be launched.

In the first phase, the project will be launched in District 1 and then will be expanded to districts 5, 3 and 10 and Thu Duc City in the second phase.

According to a representative from Saigon Public Transport Ltd. Co., passengers down narrow alleys as well as bus stops and metro stations could be served.

In 2017, HCM City piloted three 12-seat electric bus routes. However, the passenger number remained low, so 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 a total of 5,000 roads are less than seven metres wide.

Roughly 70 percent of residents in HCM City are living 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.

Source: Dtinews