VietNamNet Bridge – Eastern Bus Station started to sell passenger tickets for Tet yesterday, Jan 11.

Ticket sales would start with the 16 most popular routes, Nguyen Ngoc Thua, director of the Eastern Bus Station said, adding the station had 179 bus routes to eastern, Central Highlands, central and northern provinces.

The tickets are now on sale at booth No17 to booth No20 7:30 am-5pm every day till January 26.

For bookings of 30 passengers or more the bus will pick them up at their homes.

On January 13, the Western Bus Station will start selling Tet tickets to western provinces till January 28.

HCM City Department of Transport (DoT) said there were more than 1.3 million passengers traveling from HCM City to their home towns for the Lunar New Year, an increase of 5-10 per cent compared to last year.

Le Trung Tinh, head of DoT's Transport Management Office, said in case bus stations were overloaded, the city would increase by half the number of bus services.

Pham Quoc Tai, deputy general director of Sai Gon Transportation Mechanical Corporation, which manages the big bus stations in HCM City, said the poor condition of Highway No1 in central provinces and Highway No14 in the Central Highlands could be a problem, as buses would be slow to return to HCMC.

But he said passengers would not get stranded in bus stations.

VietNamNet/Viet Nam News