Bus No. 10A, one of five subsidised bus routes that will stop operating from April. 1. — VNA/VNS Photo

HÀ NỘI — A series of subsidised bus routes in Hà Nội will stop operating to optimise the bus network and effectively use the city's budget, said the Hà Nội Public Transport Management Centre.

Routes No. 10 A and B, 14 , 18, 44 and 145 will be stopped from April 1.

These routes are operated by the Hà Nội Transport Corporation, the Hà Nội Passenger Transport HSC and the Hà Nội Tram JSC.

Thái Hồ Phương, the centre’s director, said that his establishment has stopped printing cards and selling monthly tickets for the five bus routes.

If passengers have purchased monthly tickets for one of these five routes, they can change to monthly tickets for another route or get a refund, Phương said.

Previously, the Hà Nội Department of Transport asked the centre to urgently review and evaluate the effectiveness of each route to optimise the network for budget reasons.

According to the department, Hà Nội currently has 154 bus routes in operation, of which 132 are subsidised bus routes with a total of 2,034 buses.

The department said that the average price subsidy for public passenger transport by bus in 2022 was VNĐ3 trillion (US$120 million), the highest level of the 2020-22 period.

Currently, the city budget supports 50 per cent of monthly ticket prices for students and workers in industrial parks, 30 per cent of the monthly ticket price for officials and employees at offices and businesses outside industrial parks who buy monthly tickets in a group form and offers free tickets for people with meritorious services, people with disabilities, the elderly, children under six years old and people from poor households. — VNS