Passenger ferries - A potential source of worry.

(Baonghean) - In our province, there are 14 rivers of varying sizes. The main routes, the Lam River and the Con River, have steep slopes and strong currents, posing a danger to ferry operations. To ensure safety at river ferry crossings, relevant departments and agencies have taken action to address and rectify the situation. However, ferry crossings still pose potential safety risks, especially during the rainy and stormy season.

According to the latest statistics from the Traffic Safety Committee, as of August 2014, the province had 25 ferry crossings across rivers, a decrease of 11 compared to 2013. Specifically, Thanh Chuong district saw a decrease of 5 crossings, Anh Son and Nam Dan districts decreased by 3 each, Do Luong district by 2 crossings, and Tan Ky district by 1 crossing. The decrease in ferry crossings is due to the construction of suspension bridges such as Muou Bridge (Do Luong), Cay Mit Bridge (Anh Son), and makeshift pontoon bridges in Mon Son (Con Cuong), Nam Xuan (Nam Dan), and Mai Hung (Hoang Mai town). Currently, the province has 3 ferry crossings along the river: the upstream crossing at Hua Na Hydropower Plant, the crossing at Ban Ve Hydropower Plant, and the Phai Lai crossing along the Con River down to Dinh Son Bridge (Anh Son).

The infrastructure at Phuong ferry terminal (Thanh Giang) is severely degraded.

According to the assessment of the leaders of the Waterway Traffic Police Department, many problems still exist at ferry terminals. During inspections, the inter-agency team discovered and issued fines in 46 cases, including on-the-spot fines for 40 terminals and vessels totaling 64 million VND, and handed over 22 million VND to the districts for further processing and penalties. At six ferry terminals in Tan Ky, Anh Son, Hoang Mai floating bridge, Tuong Duong, and Que Phong, the team confiscated and suspended dozens of unregistered and uninspected vessels, and ferry operators without professional certificates.

The infrastructure of ferry terminals is also a worrying situation on the rivers today. The Linh Son - Lang Son and Linh Son - Tao Son ferry terminals carry the largest number of passengers across the river in Anh Son district, over 400-500 passengers per day. Currently, the Linh - Lang Son terminal is abandoned. Mr. Nguyen Van Tung, the ferry owner, sadly said: “For nearly two months now, many people and students have come to the terminal, but the ferry is not operating. The reason is that the access roads at both ends of the terminal are constantly eroding and being washed away by the water. The ferry operators had to invest in digging and filling the land, building stone and sand embankments at both ends of the terminal for passengers to board and disembark (5-7 million VND/time), but it was ineffective, so the contract was terminated.” Currently, the waiting area and the price list at both ends of the terminal are broken and damaged. People in Linh Son are dumping waste, bricks, and stones all over the road leading to the terminal. At the Linh - Tao Son ferry terminal, the waiting area is occupied by people stockpiling sand and gravel for trading. The road to the ferry terminal is silted up, becoming a grazing area for buffalo and cattle belonging to the people of Linh Son. According to our investigation, the waiting areas at the ferry terminals in Anh Son district are damaged or unusable. Although the province invested 290 million VND per terminal in constructing access roads, these have been almost completely destroyed or are ineffective. At Phuong terminal (Thanh Chuong), the access road is manually constructed without embankments, causing erosion and muddy conditions during storms, forcing ferry operators to frequently change their docking points.

On the other hand, the promotion of awareness among ferry operators and passengers about wearing life jackets when crossing the river by ferry has not yet shown any improvement. Phuong Ferry Terminal is considered a self-managed safe ferry terminal connecting four communes in the Xuan Lam cluster with six communes in the Bich Hao area of ​​Thanh Chuong district. However, ferry operators and passengers are often careless, failing to wear life jackets or wearing them only as a formality. The life jackets on the boats are old, dilapidated, and unused for a long time. In addition, despite the lack of warning lights at both ends of the terminal, Phuong Ferry Terminal still carries passengers at night and overloads them with 30-40 people per trip (the regulated capacity is 12 people per trip). This is also a common situation at many ferry terminals in Thanh Chuong, Anh Son, and Tan Ky districts.

Mr. Nguyen Dinh Minh, Deputy Head of the Waterway Traffic Police Department, stated: At the ferry terminal along the Hua Na Hydropower Plant, there are 100 unregistered and uninspected passenger vessels operating on the river, and the ferry operators lack professional certificates. At the ferry terminal along the Ban Ve Hydropower Plant, there are 200 passenger vessels, but only one-third of them are registered and inspected for safety and technical standards. Furthermore, makeshift pontoon bridges constructed from bamboo and reeds do not meet safety regulations and pose a significant danger to people and vehicles crossing the river. These difficulties, in reality, have not been, or are very difficult to, thoroughly and promptly address.

Besides those difficulties, managing ferry terminals in our province is also a challenging problem. For a long time, the responsibility for ferry terminals has basically been delegated by local authorities to contract holders on a "self-collection, self-management" basis. The leaders of the People's Committees of the communes with ferry terminals have not implemented management, or have only issued regulations that are temporary in nature. An officer from the Linh Son commune police station in Anh Son district said: "Because the tasks haven't been clearly defined, we are unaware of the changes at the two ferry terminals. Currently, the responsibility for both ferry terminals in our commune has been outsourced to the two communes on the other side of the river." At Phuong - Thanh Chuong ferry terminal, ferry operations are managed by the contract holder under a self-management mechanism, involving investment in technical infrastructure and self-accounting. More notably, according to the assessment of the Department of Transport Inspectorate, the districts and communes have not yet fully demonstrated their responsibility in implementing Plan 82/KH-UBND of the Provincial People's Committee on the "Traffic Culture for Peaceful Waterways" movement in 2014. Currently, the districts and communes have not yet defined the objectives and content of the movement, so no district has implemented it in accordance with the province's directive on rectifying and building safe and model ferry terminals.

Ensuring safety on inland waterways has always been identified as a pressing issue in our province during the rainy and stormy season. To ensure safety at ferry terminals during this year's rainy and stormy season, the Provincial People's Committee issued Document 3385/QD.UBND dated May 22nd on "Strengthening the work of ensuring order and safety on inland waterways during the tourist season and the rainy and stormy season of 2014". Currently, the Provincial Traffic Safety Committee has deployed the first batch of life jackets, including 569 life jackets and 276 lifebuoys, to six districts: Anh Son, Thanh Chuong, Do Luong, Nam Dan, Hoang Mai town, and Thai Hoa town, so that localities can proactively distribute them to ferry terminals before this year's rainy and stormy season.

Text and photos:Luong Mai