Main offices of companies working as illegal stations for unlicensed coaches always have a valid permit for tourist transport by car. With this permit at hand, employees of these companies can explain that the site is the place for tourism consultation, trip booking, tourist picking up and dropping off, passenger or goods transport under a contract.
The third type of illegal stations on streets is born by taking advantage of the policy to allow vehicle parking on odd or even days of certain streets, or paid-parking sections of streets in HCMC. This is rather popular along national highways, in front of famous tourist areas, or even inside residential areas in order to pick up and drop off regular passengers.
The appearance of unlicensed coaches, especially around formal coach stations, dated back to the beginning of 2000s, when passenger transport activities on fixed routes were still exclusive to assigned transport units. Since 2002, this exclusiveness has been eliminated, yet illegal stations of unlicensed coaches still exist since many passengers prefer to be dropped off at door of their destinations.
Another typical reason for the stubborn persistence of unlicensed coaches is because in the competition among different transport businesses, weaker ones cannot win a slot inside a formal station and opt for continuing their business activities at illegal stations.
This has led to a considerable drop of transportation activities inside official coach stations while the opposite can be easily seen in illegal ones, where unlicensed passenger transport vehicles are working as tourism vehicles under a contract.
