More than 2,600 km of railways linking the north and the south has become an indispensable travel link Vietnamese people. The train horn always heralds a departure or a reunion. All these can be easily seen at Saigon Railway Passenger Transport Company.
Wholly State-owned Saigon Railway Passenger Transport Company specialises in passenger, luggage and parcel transportation; freight transportation; domestic multi-modal transportation; international transportation; and others. Currently, the company is managing railways from Ho Chi Minh City to Da Nang City, crossing nine provinces and cities, with about 85 stations and 13 affiliates. Besides, the company enters into partnerships and cooperation with domestic and foreign organisations engaged in transportation and other business fields. Apart from its major functions and tasks, the company also participates in many political tasks like stabilising market prices and operating not-for-profit routes to serve people. With its efforts, the company has gradually proved its roles and responsibilities to the community and the national economy.
In nearly 10 years of operation, Saigon Railway Passenger Transport Company has dealt with numerous difficulties like soaring input prices, unsynchronised infrastructure, and pressure from other means of transport. However, thanks to the consistency in policymaking, objective construction, service criteria, and economy, the company has gradually overcome the inherent difficulties to bring its service to domestic and international customers. In 2011, although the Vietnamese economy has not escaped the impacts of global economic crisis, the company still had impressive performance, featuring revenue growth of 29 percent over 2010 and employee income rise of 25 percent. It also performed its role in passenger transportation and market price stabilisation. This achievement recognised the effort of the company in the context of difficult economic circumstances.
The success is also resulted from flexibility policies in supplying services to customers, enhancing the quality of passenger transportation, and developing new products and services, particularly tourism. To date, the company has built many attractive tourist routes for domestic and foreign tourists travelling by train. Typical routes include Saigon - Phan Thiet Route (SPT), Saigon - Quy Nhon Route (SQN), Saigon - Nha Trang Route (SNT), and Saigon - Hue Route (SH). Breakthrough services create sustainable development of the company.
Apart from safety issues, the company has launched a number of synchronous measures like opening new booking methods for customers, launching online ticketing system at
www.vetau.com.vn, accepting ATM cards or credit cards for ticket payments, selling tickets on telephone, delivering tickets at home, upgrading stations and cars, enhancing communication skills, salesmanship, service skills for staff; surveying markets, introduced high-quality products for passengers. Hence, travelling by train has become the first choice for many passengers.
With the policy of “mobilising all resources for sustainable development and gradual modernisation,” the company tries to maintain steady growth and carries out all regulations on railway passenger and freight transportation. Especially, the company and the entire railway industry strive to ensure railway safety in 2012 which is seen as a step towards modernisation of the company.
Minh Tuan
Vietnamese
