The old Eastern Bus Station (Binh Thanh Ward) has just announced a plan to serve the Lunar New Year 2026. Ticket prices for all routes have increased by 40 - 60% compared to normal days.
After most of the inter-provincial routes were relocated to new wharves, the old Eastern Bus Station now has about 73 routes to provinces such as Lam Dong, Dong Nai, Gia Lai, Quang Ngai.
It is forecasted that in the 10 days before Tet, the old Eastern Bus Station will serve about 160,000 passengers. At the peak period from December 24 to 28, the number of passengers passing through the wharf reached 20,000 - 23,000 people per day.
At the same time, the new Mien Dong bus station (Long Binh ward) is expected to welcome only about 108,500 visitors in the 10 days before Tet. During peak season from 24 to 28 Tet, the number of passengers passing through the wharf ranges from 10,500 to 14,000 people per day.
In reality, in the 20 days of service for the Lunar New Year 2025, the old Eastern Bus Station welcomed about 182,000 visitors, while the Eastern Bus Station only served more than 158,000 visitors.
The old Mien Dong Bus Station said it currently serves more than 387,000 passengers per month, equivalent to about 12,000 passengers per day.
Meanwhile, the new Eastern Bus Station has a total investment of more than VND4,000 billion, built on an area of 16 hectares. Phase 1 alone has an investment capital of more than 773 billion VND, officially put into operation from October 2020.
The project was built to replace the old Eastern Bus Station in the inner city, while creating a boost for inter-provincial passenger transport in Ho Chi Minh City.
In fact, after nearly 5 years of operation, the operation of the bus station is in contrast to expectations. The bus station is often sparsely populated, with an operating capacity of less than 10%.
On average, there are only about 6,400 visitors and 375 trips per day, although most of the long routes have been moved here.
Since Metro No. 1 (Ben Thanh - Suoi Tien) was put into operation at the end of 2024, the number of passengers passing through the station has shown signs of increasing but is still not much.
The representative of the new Mien Dong bus station said that the reason for the number of passengers not meeting expectations comes from many factors such as the popular situation of "illegal buses and illegal bus stations", unsynchronized traffic infrastructure, and unreasonable fixed pick-up and drop-off points.
To remove these shortcomings, the new Mien Dong bus station has proposed to soon end the operation of inappropriate pick-up and drop-off points, and at the same time adjust the routes of fixed routes in the direction of limiting passenger vehicles traveling through the inner city.
At the same time, it is necessary to strengthen inspection and strictly handle the situation of "illegal buses and illegal bus stations", install additional surveillance camera systems, apply fines and complete traffic infrastructure connecting to bus stations.
