The route will help ease overcrowded roads connecting the city via its outlying island to the popular beach destination.
The Ho Chi Minh City Department of Transport has finished surveying the route, and if the pilot program proves successful, passengers will be able to use it this year. The 15-kilometer journey will take 30 minutes. It currently takes around two hours to travel between Saigon and Vung Tau by car.
The route will employ 43.25-meter-long ferries that weigh over 103 tons each and can accommodate 350 passengers, 150 motorbikes and 20 cars. Ha Thanh Son, head of the waterway travel bureau under the municipal transport department, explained to Tuoi Tre that after the city People's Committee approves the initiative, they will organize a bid to select an investor to operate the ferry.
A private ferry currently operates between Can Gio and Vung Tau. In January 2018, Greenlines DP launched a route connecting the two locations 14 times a week, as well as Ben Tre.
No information has been released regarding a specific schedule or hours of operations for the municipal ferries.
[Photo: The Long An-Saigon ferry station/Tuoi Tre]
