HÀ NỘI — Hải Phòng City’s Department of Transport has decided to allow the Gót ferry terminal to operate for 24 hours throughout the week.

According to the decision on May 12, 2018 on the temporary traffic flow at Gót ferry terminal in Cát Hải District, the ferry terminal will operate round the clock every day from May 12 to serve the increasing tourist demand during the summer vacation, director of the city’s Department of Transport Vũ Duy Tùng confirmed to vietnamplus.vn online newspaper.

The terminal from Tân Vũ Bridge across the island will ferry tourists to Cát Bà tourim island 24 hours a day, so there are no time constraints for visitors to get back to the mainland.

However, two-way trucks passing through the terminal are prohibited from 2pm to 9pm on Fridays and from 5am to 9pm on Saturdays and Sundays.

The Tân Vũ-Lạch Huyện Bridge has shortened the travel time from Hải Phòng City centre to Cát Bà Island to two hours from the previous three hours.

It took 15 minutes for vehicles to go to Cát Bà Island, Cát Hải District from Gót ferry terminal but the ferry-awaiting time was up to several hours because there were many vehicles as long queues.

This is good news for visitors to Cát Bà Island as well as for residents living on the island district. The route from Hải Phòng to Cát Bà is now officially connected 24x7, said an official of the city’s Transport Department.

Previously, the ferry terminal was closed at 17h every day, so many vehicles and visitors were stuck on the island if they didn’t timely present at the terminal before 17h to come back land.  

The ferry terminal remains crowded on weekends and holidays, especially summer. Such loss of time, besides causing inconvenience, affects tourism as well as socio-economic development of Cát Hải Island District.

The number of people and means of transport going to Cát Hải District and Cát Bà Island through Gót ferry has increased significantly, especially in the peak times, from 1,000 to 2,000 cars; from 1,000 to 2,500 motorcycles and about 7,000 to 14,000 people, according to the city’s Department of Transport. — VNS