Talking to Lao Dong Newspaper on the morning of April 3, Mr. Bui Hoa An - Deputy Director of Ho Chi Minh City Department of Construction said that functional units are urgently completing relevant dossiers and procedures.
According to the plan, the Ho Chi Minh City People's Council may meet around April 20; if the Resolution on bus ticket exemption is approved, the policy will take effect after about 10 days.
Previously, at the 5th Conference of the Executive Committee of the Ho Chi Minh City Party Committee, on April 1, Secretary of the Ho Chi Minh City Party Committee Tran Luu Quang informed that the city had a policy of exempting bus tickets for people.
It is expected that the budget needs about 7,000 billion VND per year to implement. Although it is a large expense, city leaders assess this as a necessary investment to aim for long-term goals such as reducing traffic congestion, improving the environment and improving the quality of urban life.
According to Mr. Bui Hoa An, the plan is being studied in the direction of application on all inter-provincial bus routes, including subsidized and non-subsidized routes, with a scale of about 135 routes.
For inter-provincial bus routes, due to their specific operating characteristics and other financial mechanisms, they have not yet been considered for toll exemption.
The entire Ho Chi Minh City bus system currently has about 179 routes with more than 2,100 vehicles, of which 1,301 are electric buses, accounting for about 62% of the vehicle fleet.
Currently, some groups have been exempted or reduced ticket prices, such as people from 60 years old, children under 6 years old, people with meritorious services, and people with disabilities.
Bus tickets on subsidized routes are currently at 5,000 VND/trip (under 15 km), 6,000 VND (15 - 25 km) and 7,000 VND (over 25 km). Students only pay 3,000 VND/trip; practice tickets range from 112,500 to 157,500 VND/30 tickets.
Mr. Bui Hoa An said that currently the city budget spends about 1,500 billion VND each year to subsidize buses. When completely free, the estimated cost will increase significantly. Therefore, the plans are being comprehensively calculated to ensure compliance with legal regulations, and at the same time use the budget effectively.
One of the requirements is that even if tickets are free, management agencies must still monitor and accurately statistics the number of passengers. The city plans to apply monitoring technology to ensure transparency and convenience in the implementation process.
Regarding service capacity, leaders of the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Construction said that the number of passengers may increase by about 30% compared to 2025 when applying the free policy. Currently, many new bus routes are only operating below 50% capacity, so there is still room to meet demand.
However, in case the number of passengers increases sharply, the scale of the convoy and operating frequency will be calculated and adjusted appropriately, especially on routes connecting schools and industrial parks - places with high travel demand for students and workers.
