SMS train booking service now available

The HCM City Railway Station on December 1 launched its train booking service via SMS in a bid to save time for passengere.
According to the station’s announcement, it would not sell tickets for the lunar New Year 2010 (Tet) via the Internet by via SMS. The fees for sending a message is 12,000.
Passengers have to send messages in the following form: vesg - day of departure -station of departure - station of arrival - the type of seat - number of seats. For example: vesg (the code of the service) 02.09.2009 (time of departure) saigon (name of departure station) hanoi (name of arrival station) ngoimem (soft seat) 2 (two seats). It means that the passenger wants to book two tickets on the train from HCM City to Hanoi on September 2, 2009 on soft seats.
To search for train schedule, passengers have to send messages in the following form: gio tau, the name of the station of departure and the name of the station of arrival, for example: giotau nhatrang danang to know the running time of the train from Nha Trang to Da Nang. For information about ticket prices, the SMS should be giave, train code, name of departure station and name of arrival station, for instance: giave SE1 hanoi hue to know the ticket price for the train from Hanoi to Hue. SMS must be sent to 8205 to receive follow-up guidance.
The procedures to get tickets via SMS is: sending the SMS, confirming to buy tickets by phone, coming to bureaus of the Vietnam Commercial and Industrial Bank or this bank’s ATMs to pay for the tickets, bringing the payment vouches to railways stations to receive the tickets.
To verify their SMS, passengers can visit websites vetau.com.vn, vesms.com.vn, gasaigon.com.vn và saigonrailway.com.vn to check.
Officials of the Saigon Railways Station said that buying tickets via SMS is safer than on the Internet and the system can process up to 500,000 SMS in 30 seconds.
The station’s chief Pham Thi Thanh Phuong said that the Tet train ticket selling program will be divided into three stages, before, in and after Tet. The first stage will take place from December 1, the second from February 1-12 and the third from February 19-28, 2010. During Tet, the number of Hanoi-Saigon trains will be increased.
Phuong said that the station will sell 175,000 tickets for the Tet 2010. Some 50 percent of the seats are sold to groups of passengers, who registered from November 11-20. Some 20 percent are distributed by agents. The remaining will be sold via SMS.