At the workshop `The issue of bus subsidies – problems and solutions` organized by the Ho Chi Minh City Institute for Development Studies (HIDS) on July 31, there were many inadequacies regarding the amount of city bus subsidies.

Despite many priorities and an increasingly large subsidy amount reaching trillions of dong, Ho Chi Minh City buses still have not attracted many people, instead the number of motorbikes and cars in the area is constantly increasing.

There are currently nearly 3,000 buses in the city, meeting about 6-7% of people’s travel needs.

According to the explanation of the Department of Transport of Ho Chi Minh City, subsidy costs increase each year mainly due to increases in labor wages (accounting for 40-60% of costs) and fuel (20-30% of costs).

“Ho Chi Minh City’s bus subsidy policy is a direct subsidy for passengers.

There are only a few passengers on the bus, or even no passengers, which is a common sight on some bus routes in Ho Chi Minh City.

Faced with the explanation of the city’s transportation industry, many delegates expressed disagreement because they believed that the rate of increase in passengers did not correspond to the rate of increase in subsidies.

Sharing the same opinion, Ms. Pham Thi Thanh Hien (HIDS) said that statistics from the transport sector show that after 8 years of subsidies, the number of buses and routes has not increased much.

And Mr. Nguyen Van Lam, Deputy Head of Economics and Budget of Ho Chi Minh City People’s Council, said that over the past 10 years, since the bus subsidy program (2002-2012), bus prices in Ho Chi Minh City have increased 5 times.

At the conference this morning, Mr. Lam Thieu Quan, a representative of Ho Chi Minh City People’s Council, proposed a `breakthrough` when he suggested that Ho Chi Minh City should install wifi for all buses in the area to attract more people to take the bus.

Meanwhile, Master Nguyen Thi Bich Hang, University of Transport and Communications, said that when evaluating the efficiency of passenger transport activities, one should not only consider financial efficiency but also economic efficiency.

“The economic value of these effects is not easy to determine and the contributions of public passenger transport often do not receive proper evaluation by public opinion.

Similarly, Dr. Vo Kim Cuong, former Deputy Director of the Department of Planning and Architecture of Ho Chi Minh City, said that not only Ho Chi Minh City, but for public passenger transportation (HKCC) in general and buses in particular, if there is no

In order for the subsidy to be effective and help buses stand on their own in the long run, MSc. Le Trung Tinh, former Head of the Transportation Management Department (Ho Chi Minh City Department of Transportation) proposed expanding the advance ticket sales system.