As part of efforts to make inter-provincial travelfrom and to the city more comfortable and safe for passengers, it hasasked the municipal Transport Department to review bus schedules at allmajor terminals in the capital city.
The Hanoi People'sCommittee has also directed all bus stations in the capital city not toincrease the number of trips on fixed routes except during nationalholidays or the Tet festival, the report said.
It quoted NguyenQuoc Hung, Vice Chairman of the city People's Committee, as saying thatfrom now until 2020, bus terminals receiving high traffic volumes shouldalso not increase the number of routes they service.
"Bus terminals need to invest financial resources in improving service quality," he said.
Healso said that new fixed-bus routes will be launched from the Nuoc Ngamand Yen Nghia bus terminals that have the infrastructural capacity tohandle more routes and trips.
There are 10 inter-provincial busterminals in the capital city, with the six main ones being: Giap Bat,My Dinh, Gia Lam, Luong Yen, Nuoc Ngam and Yen Nghia.
Most of them are located at gateways to the city or on main roads that link the city via ring-roads to various provinces.
Bus terminals in the city serve 540 inter-provincial transport routes that link Hanoi with 42 provinces and cities in Vietnam.
Atotal of 404 passenger transport enterprises have registered with themunicipal Transport Department to run on inter-provincial routes. Thesefirms have been allowed to operate 4,591 buses. Firms in Hanoi accountfor 15 percent of the licensed enterprises, operating 1,263 buses. Theyserve 61 million turns of passengers every year, and have recorded anaverage growth of 8.25 percent per year over the last several years, thereport said.
Among the 10 bus terminals, the My Dinh Terminalhas the highest number of bus arrivals and departures, at 1,600 arrivalsand Nuoc Ngam Terminal has the lowest at 220.
TransportDepartment Deputy Director Nguyen Hoang Linh said the difference betweenthe two above terminals was based on city residents' demand for travel.
However,he also said that some bus terminals were not effectively connectingwith public transport enterprises and failed to provide quality service.This discouraged passengers from taking buses at these terminals, headded.-VNA