Buses
Vientiane has a reasonable city bus network which is centered on a combined local bus and long distance coach station. However, as the Vientiane bus network has evolved over the last couple of years so there seems to be quite a lot of out of date information on the 'net. Indeed there are some sites from only a few years ago that state there is no public transport system in the city including oe such site from 2017 linked fro the Wikipedia page for Vientiane. This is probably the most up to date on-line map of the Vientiane bus network and also shows real time location of buses. The ThaiEst site looks like it has the latest timetables and fares for each route.
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| Bus station |
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| Bus station |
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| Route network poster |
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| Timetables on display at the bus station. The lack of consistent format is frustrating! |
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| Isuzu city bus mainly used on the route to the Friendship Bridge (Thai border crossing) and Budd Park, route 14. Tickets for this route can be purchased in advance from the ticket office - indeed signage asks that you do so. However there is also a conductor on board not lease because of customers boarding at any other location. Bodyside branding suggests these were a gift from Japan. |
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| Mitsubishi minibus used on most city buses. Branding on these also suggests they were a gift from Japan to aid Laos' economic and social development. |
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| A JMMC (JingMa Motor Conpany) Co-Star minibus are also used. The branding on these suggests they were bought for transport to an ASEAN conference in 2014 before entering the local bus fleet. |
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| Typical bus stop although some are more grandiose affairs with shelters, and some attempt at information. |
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| A very low capacity version of the Co-Star is used on airport route 33. This is also be far the most expensive service at 40,000KIP (about £1.50) one-way |
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| A cheaper way to/from the airport would be route 8 which passes the road entrance but does not go in to the terminal. |
Coaches
The coach services from Vientiane bus station primarily serve cross-border traffic to Udon Thani in Thailand. Unlike the chaos of Udon Thani coach station, Vientiane is relatively calm and organised, not least because it comes with a proper ticket office and waiting area. There are a variety of coach types in service, some with air conditioning and some without, and whilst I didn't check I am sure there is a fare differential to reflect this. The vehicles are all on the Laos register.
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| Ticket office: separate windows for each coach route as well as the local bus 14 mentioned above. |
Songatheaw
Vientiane appears to have a small songtheaw network. Any more information has been hard to come by - it's definitely a case of "if you know, you know, and if you don't know it's not for you!". Here's one I saw.
Tuk Tuk
As stated in part 1, Vientiane uses tuk tuks as designed, as taxis. Whilst they will attempt to overcharge around tourist attractions that's no different to taxis the world over. Here's some tuk tuks on rank in central Vientiane.
Bus Rapid Transit
BRT is a popular means of enhancing urban transport in developing cities, most famously in cities such as Curitiba and Bogota and latterly in central Africa and Asia. A three route BRT system is planned to open in mid-2025 in Vientiane, although I learnt about it when the letters 'BRT' caught my eye on some site boards!
To my very untrained eye it did appear that construction had halted on those parts of the BRT that I could see, but I did not explore all 30km+ of the network so it may well just be that construction phasing did not necessitate any work on the parts I could see.
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| Vientiane Sustainable Urban Transport is the project name of which BRT is one part, |
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| Partially constructed BRT stop. |
