On the evening of October 28, the Thanh Buoi Passenger Car social network announced that it would stop carrying passengers from 5:00 a.m. on October 29 on all routes from Ho Chi Minh City to Da Lat, Ho Chi Minh City to Can Tho, and Da Lat to Can Tho. The bus company only accepts cargo transportation. Many passengers who had booked tickets were suddenly confused, even though the bus company said it would transfer refunds for tickets that customers had paid for.
The bus company explained that the Thanh Buoi bus management server was paralyzed since midnight on October 26, there was no more data and information to pick up passengers and had to be processed manually with pen and paper, causing overload and disruption to customer service.
Empty dock, customers worry
Information sheet provided by Thanh Buoi bus company to passengers on the Da Lat - Ho Chi Minh City route on October 28 (Photo: Nhat Binh).
On the morning of October 29, at two Thanh Buoi locations in Ho Chi Minh City (Le Hong Phong Street, District 5 and Dien Bien Phu Street, Binh Thanh District), the usually busy weekend parking lot no longer had people carrying luggage up and down, going in and out.
Most passengers who booked tickets have updated information about the bus company stopping operations from the official Thanh Buoi Passenger Bus social networking site or via the phone switchboard.
However, there were still passengers who had to crawl all the way to the bus station to receive the news, get an explanation from the staff, and then had to leave.
"I booked a trip from Da Lat to Ho Chi Minh City on Sunday night, October 29. Early in the morning, when I received the news, I was shocked and called the bus company. After hearing the explanation, I had to find another bus company to be able to return to Ho Chi Minh City early the next morning to go to work. I intentionally booked early, worried that many passengers in the same situation as me would rush to book buses from other companies, causing overload and sold out tickets," said Le Duc (a tourist traveling to Da Lat).
At Mien Tay Bus Station (Binh Tan District, Ho Chi Minh City) on the same day, some people who often use the freight transport service from Ho Chi Minh City to Can Tho were also present to inquire about the situation, even though they had no need for transportation yet.
"Given the current situation, I'm just worried about losing a means of transporting goods. If I have to change, I'll have to calculate the costs, find another carrier, become a new driver... in general, it's annoying," a fruit trader expressed his worries.
The two headquarters of Thanh Buoi car company in Ho Chi Minh City were deserted on the morning of October 29 (Photo: An Huy).
The Ho Chi Minh City Department of Transport has proactively worked with inter-provincial vehicles in the area to ensure people's travel activities after Thanh Buoi bus company suddenly suspended operations.
According to the Department of Transport, the new Eastern Bus Station (Thu Duc City) has prepared a plan to increase the number of passenger buses from this place to Da Lat City.
At Mien Tay Bus Station (Binh Tan District), Thanh Buoi bus company operates an average of 32 trips per day from Ho Chi Minh City to Can Tho with about 650 passengers. When this company stops operating, the number of passengers will be transferred to 4 other passenger transport units.
In the announcement of suspension of operations, Thanh Buoi bus company has not announced the time to resume passenger bus operations.
On the afternoon of October 29, the bus company's social media page had new information: Because it was Sunday, some passengers did not have time to get information, were already at the bus station or had medical appointments on Monday, so the company had to depart 7 trips to serve the urgent needs of customers.
Thanh Buoi passenger bus on the road (Photo: Thanh Buoi Passenger Bus Facebook).
A bus driver's story
After reviewing a month of Thanh Buoi Company being inspected by authorities, a reader of Dan Tri newspaper asked: "I wonder why all the passenger buses drive fast and recklessly. Is it because the drivers like it that way or is there another reason?"
Directly related to driver Thanh Buoi who caused the accident in the early morning of September 30, a source revealed that this driver had fallen asleep while driving many times.
"Drivers have to drive continuously to meet their KPIs to ensure their salary, so almost everyone gets tired and falls asleep, almost causing accidents many times. The driver who caused the accident the other day also often fell asleep," said a former employee (bus assistant) of Thanh Buoi Company.
This person said that after watching the video of the car that caused the accident, he recognized the driver Hoang Van Tinh as having accompanied him on many trips. On each trip together, this person did not dare to sleep because he had to stay awake to watch the driver. Many times, the driver almost crashed into the median strip.
Hoang Van Tinh is working with the police (Photo: Provided by the police).
Hoang Van Tinh (37 years old, from Thua Thien Hue, Thanh Buoi car driver) was prosecuted and temporarily detained by the Dinh Quan District Police (Dong Nai) for violating road traffic regulations. During the investigation, abnormalities in the driver's health records were also pointed out.
Former employees of Thanh Buoi bus company shared: Many Thanh Buoi drivers only sleep 6 hours/day. Thanh Buoi company pays drivers a high salary, so everyone is eager to work to earn money, trying to meet KPI. Therefore, many drivers intentionally increase working hours, "saving" rest time.
This detail is one of the violations of Thanh Buoi Company Limited as pointed out by the authorities: Many cases of drivers violating continuous driving time (over 4 hours) and violating working driving time during the day (over 10 hours).
A Thanh Buoi passenger bus just arrived at the headquarters on Le Hong Phong street and was checked by traffic police (Photo: Nguyen An).
What do passengers say about Thanh Buoi bus?
On social networks these days, regarding Thanh Buoi, many people are concerned about the issue of driver management among the violations of the bus company and express their opinions towards this bus company.
"Each bus company will have different drivers. Many drivers are very dedicated, but there are also bad drivers. As long as the business manages and the authorities discipline the drivers to drive according to the law and respect safety.
Furthermore, people expressed their wish that drivers, not just Thanh Buoi, would stop speeding, overtaking, encroaching on motorbike lanes, and honking loudly, especially when passing through residential areas.
This is a lesson for transport businesses, it is necessary to promote driver training and testing, drivers with poor cultural level must be sent to compulsory ethics training", one opinion stated.
Account Toan Nguyen recounted information: in the late 1990s - at that time, most of the trips were 16-seat "unlicensed" buses, also known as express buses. These buses ran at no fixed time, only when they were full of passengers. The 16-seat buses were packed with nearly 30 passengers.
Mr. Toan Nguyen said: At that time, Thanh Buoi was born with a few plum-colored 16-seat Mercedes cars. The company let the cars depart on time and only carry the right number of seats, not stuffing passengers. At first, people did not know much, sometimes the cars had to depart with less than 10 passengers.
Sharing with reporters, Ms. Truong Yen (a Da Lat native working in Ho Chi Minh City) said that Thanh Buoi is one of the few transport companies operating the first 50-seat passenger vans on the Da Lat - Ho Chi Minh City route.
In 2000, when Thanh Buoi Company was officially established, it was the first time Ms. Yen traveled by this company's car to Ho Chi Minh City for tourism and visiting relatives. After that, from 2004, she only used Thanh Buoi car to go to Ho Chi Minh City to study at university until now, returning to Da Lat once a month, with the reason being satisfaction with the service.
Thanh Buoi's passenger and cargo vehicles (Photo: Duy Ngan, Thanh Buoi).
On social networks, many generations of students from Lam Dong and Can Tho shared that Thanh Buoi bus company supported them with 30-50% of the ticket price when they went to Ho Chi Minh City to take the university entrance exam.
On the other hand, many passengers are concerned that when Thanh Buoi stops operating, if there is only one bus company serving the current route (with quality equivalent to Thanh Buoi), the monopoly will no longer be beneficial to passengers and people.
Thanh Buoi Company Limited is the owner of Thanh Buoi bus company, established in 2000, holding a large market share on transportation routes between Ho Chi Minh City, Lam Dong (Da Lat, Bao Loc) and Can Tho.
At about 2:30 a.m. on September 30, on National Highway 20 (the right side of the route belongs to Phu Loi commune, the left side belongs to Phu Vinh commune), Dinh Quan district, Dong Nai province, a sleeper bus belonging to Thanh Buoi Company traveling from Dau Giay to Da Lat collided with the back of a truck traveling in the same direction.
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