Students board a school bus in HCM City. (Photo: VNA)
HCM City (VNA) – Ho Chi Minh City’s authoritieshope to have at least 15-20 percent of school children travelling bybus by 2020.
To spur students to use buses, the Management and OperationCentre for Public Transport wants the city to increase ticket subsidises thisyear to 3,968 VND per trip for intra-city travel and 4,587 VND in Can Giodistrict.
The current rates are 2,830 VND and 3,537 VND.
Tran Chi Trung, the centre’s director, said the highersubsidies would also encourage transport operators to buy new buses and improvetheir services.
Tran Quang Lam, deputy director of the Department ofTransport, said the department has suggested that the city should provideinterest-free loans for 10 years worth 70 percent of the cost of abus to operators.
The department has worked with the Department of Educationand Training to ensure traffic safety in school areas, especially during peakhours.
They also instructed transport enterprises to improve theirservices and increase their number of daily trips so that more students usepublic transport.
“Encouraging students to use public buses is a great way toreduce traffic jams and pollution in the city,” Lam said.
Last year 36,700 students travelled by bus while the city’starget had been 40,000.
The figure was 10 percent down from 2016.
Only 123 schools in 15 districts have signed agreements withbus operators to pick up and drop their students, and 71 percent ofthem are situated in outlying districts like Can Gio, Cu Chi, Hoc Mon, BinhChanh, and Nha Be.
Trung said that in the inner city parents prefer to taketheir children to school since their homes are not far from school but quitefar from main roads where the buses stop.-VNA
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Students board a school bus in HCM City. (Photo: VNA) 
