The tourist train Hoa Phuong Do (named for the red flamboyant blossom that is Hai Phong's city flower), linking Hanoi and Hai Phong, has run about 3,000 services and carried some 1.33 million passengers since it launched on May 10, 2025, VietnamPlus reported on July 22. With four round trips a day, it draws 2,500\u20133,000 riders on weekdays and 5,500\u20136,000 on weekends and holidays. Hanoi to Hai Phong runs about 1.5\u20132 hours of driving by limousine bus on Expressway 5B (105.5 km)\u20142\u20133 hours including city pickup and drop-off\u2014while the train takes 2.5 hours. We'll use only the published figures to check why the seats still fill and whether residents and business travelers can actually use it.<\/p>\n
First, let's pin down the timeframe of the figures.About 1.33 million passengers, about 3,000 runs<\/strong>is the cumulative total built up from the launch on May 10, 2025 to the first anniversary on May 10, 2026. The figure Railway.Supply reported for the anniversary matches the one VietnamPlus cited on July 22 as 'since entering service in May 2025.' You can't read it as adding 1.33 million every year.<\/p>\n The rolling stock, as Vietnam Railways (VNR) laid out in a May 5, 2025 announcement, is 20 newly built cars in three seat classes: a 34-seat VIP car, a 56-seat first-class car with seats that rotate 180 degrees, and a 64-seat standard car, running as HP1\/HP2, LP5\/LP6, LP2\/LP3 and LP7\/LP8. Tran Van Hanh, head of the Hai Phong Railway Transport Branch, explains that beyond interiors inspired by Hai Phong, buses, motorbike rental, city tours and a digital tourist map can all be accessed via QR codes on board. According to the branch, revenue on the Hanoi\u2013Hai Phong line grew 15% year on year in the first half of 2026.<\/p>\n The Hanoi\u2013Hai Phong railway is 102 km, and the parallel Expressway 5B is 105.5 km. On booking sites, limousine buses depart hourly from the 5 a.m. hour to the 9 p.m. hour; via the expressway the actual run is one and a half to two hours, or two to three hours including in-city transfers, with fares around 220,000\u2013250,000 dong (about 1,360\u20131,540 yen). The bus wins on the ease of door-to-door service, but the time gap narrows to anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour depending on conditions.<\/p>\n Even so, people are shifting to the train because it competes on a different axis. Arrival times unaffected by traffic jams, room to move around inside the carriage, and a lower fare floor. From June 15 to August 16, 2026, Vietnam Railways is cutting weekday fares by 10%, and by adding AI-based dynamic pricing it's offering roughly 20\u201325% off on the remaining short segments (H\u00e0n\u1ed9im\u1edbi, June 15). Where bus fares are fixed, the railway can create \u201ccheap days and expensive days.\u201d This is the mechanism for catching both tourist demand and weekday demand with the same carriages.<\/p>\nOnly tens of minutes behind the expressway bus, yet the train is being chosen<\/h2>\n
Comparing fares and travel times<\/h2>\n