In the first 5 months of 2021, passenger transport targets all decreased compared to the same period in 2020. Specifically, passenger revenue was only 51.4% (reaching more than 400 billion VND); passengers boarded the train by 64.6% (1,147,813 turns).
In May – the peak month of the 4th Covid-19 wave, passenger transport revenue was 55.4% (44.7 billion VND); passengers boarding the train was only 48.4% (132,300 turns) compared to the same period in 2020. In addition, this epidemic broke out on the occasion of the holiday April 30 – May 1, therefore 11,383 tickets (equivalent to approximately 4 billion VND) were returned.
Currently, 393 trains were cut, including 38 trains of the Reunification and 355 trains of the Local. Up until now, the Reunification trains (SE7/8) are the only ones working while the Local ones must terminate.
The fourth wave of the COVID-19 epidemic, which appeared in many provinces and cities across the country, is considered to be the cause of these aforementioned business results. Provinces with a large number of infections and complicated outbreaks such as Bac Ninh, Bac Giang, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, etc have been severely affected have implemented social distancing complying Directive 15 and Directive 16 issued by the Prime Minister. That cause the railway passenger transport revenue decreased dramatically.
Concurrently, many other provinces have restricted the pick-up and drop-off of passengers from epidemic-affected provinces, and people returning from epidemic areas must be isolated from 14 to 21 days, which leads to the serious decrease in the number of train passengers due to the passenger decline.
Minh Ngo
