chub

4 minutes ago, steelepulse said:

Are we sure that the sign above is for the "smart bus" .  Signage above would appear to be for the current clapped out vehicles that ply the Phuket Town, Chalong route.  Let's hope the smart bus route is now not the same route and times as the current system.

"A few bus stops were recently erected northbound along Karon beach road (in exposed locations, distant from the sala/shelters which are all occupied by taxi and tuk-tuk drivers). The new bus stops carry only the operating hours of the long-established songtael service to Phuket Town - a service which is tolerated by the ‘interests’. "

On March 6th the operators of the long-awaited Smart Bus between the Airport and Rawai announced:

“At first we thought we would begin the service after the launch [on Feb 28] but the team has decided it would be better to test the systems for a month to make sure that the card charges the right amount of money, and ensure that the GPS and mobile application, which is upcoming, are accurate.

“There have been initial issues with the system in Bangkok, so we want to make sure we have no problems here. We want to be sure,” he said.

“Everything is ready, so the trial period will be finished no later than this month, possibly within March.

Tomorrow is the last day of March and there has been no report of when, or whether, the service will start. Our passive news media has reported no follow-up; perhaps they have been persuaded not to.  The ten new buses are sitting at their base near Central Festival.

A cynical person would suspect that the delay is due to obstruction by those with interests in operating or controlling the huge fleets of taxis and hire cars that have done so much to damage tourism on the west coast. Those interests are very well represented in the local governments as they form an important voting constituency. 

There are no physical signs of local support for the new smart bus service. There are no dedicated bus stops or service information along the route. A few bus stops were recently erected northbound along Karon beach road (in exposed locations, distant from the sala/shelters which are all occupied by taxi and tuk-tuk drivers). The new bus stops carry only the operating hours of the long-established songtael service to Phuket Town - a service which is tolerated by the ‘interests’. In the southbound direction, all parking space is monopolised by taxis and tuk-tuks, so the smart bus will need to stop in the carriageway.

There's no sign, no information or waiting space allocated for the Smart Bus at the international airport terminal.

The route map on the Smart Bus website shows only one bus stop each in Kamala, Patong, Karon and Kata. The stopping places are 6-8kms apart compared with normal bus stop spacing of one kilometre or less. Passengers will have to walk long distances to and from the (unmarked) bus stops which will be a major deterrent to usage.

Overall, the lack of service information, lack of publicity, the widely spaced, unmarked stops which are not cleared of parking and have no waiting shelters, seems to suggest this route, like its predecessor, is designed by people who have no concept of how a bus service should operate. How can it credibky be called ‘Smart’.

Read more at https://www.thephuketnews.com/official-roll-out-of-phuket-smart-bus-delayed-66219.php#H57UiGHuztTSR5pb.99

Below are some extracts from the response by the Airport Express company to a Question in the Phuket News of 20 September 2016 "Is the Phuket Airport Bus Still Running to Patong".

The company claims it doesn't have a website or email address and its office cannot be found!  They emphasise that no passengers may be picked up en route, (especially between Patong and Karon/Kata!). This company is clearly trying to deter passengers from using its service. I have never seen this bus in Karon or Kata. 

Extracts follow. The italics are mine.

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Today Phuket is due to take a Giant Leap into the 20^th Century – a bus service!

The following timetable was announced by the initiators PKCD on 3^rd February.

“First, there will be an internal company trial run around Feb 10, and then another trial before Feb 28 to pick up real passengers who are members of the public”.

“For the launch on Feb 28, there will be a launch event at Central Festival East (HomeWorks) whereby the Phuket Governor, members of the Phuket Provincial Office as well as from the national office of the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) and the Ministry of Tourism and Sports (MoTS) will be present. Tourism offices are important as Phuket is a tourism destination,” he said."

However, please don’t go and look for a bus stop along the route just yet. In fact the route, timetable and stop locations have not been announced. I don’t think any bus stops or timetables have been erected. There are no signs or timetables visible at the airport. A Google search of Phuket Smart Bus produces no new information and there’s none on the PKCD website either.

None of this looks very 'smart'. Perhaps those who benefit from the ‘status quo’ have prevailed.  

Some well-informed advice from a major local travel agent's website on the practices of the airport limousine operators.

"PLEASE FOLLOW THE ADVISE BELOW

Always book your Hotel and airport transfer in advance, even if only for one night. It is much easier to shop for a deal once you have escaped the Airport Taxi Touts, because no Hotel will be able to offer you any special deal when you arrive in an airport taxi. Also, drivers employed by Hotels are generally more friendly and helpful.

If you don't have time to book in advance, simply order the taxi to go directly to the hotel of your choice and tell him you already have a booking. But this will sometimes create a problem for the hotel because if you dont have any documentation of your booking, the taxi driver will insist the hotel pay a commission anyway. They are very pushy and often times will volunteer to help carry your bags to reception so they can see if you produce documentation of a booking at check in.

Never discuss your travel details with Airport Taxi drivers , treat them exactly as what they are, a service which employs low class people to perform the job of bringing you from point A to point B. Never give a taxi driver any respect, they see that as a sign that you are weak and can be taken advantage of. It is important to remember, they demand a commission on every night you stay not just the first night. They even come back and check with reception to see if you checked out or stayed longer.

Please keep a note of the taxis ID number in case you want to report any strange behavior and in case the driver asks the hotel to pay a commission after you check in, you can give that information to the Hotel. Use the metered taxis if possible. Help them to get their business going, but please follow the same guidelines above as they also would like to get a piece of the hotel action."

27 minutes ago, Ulic said:

The only news here is they are admitting to it and not covering up the story.

But the original article quoting the mayor has already been removed from the PN website. Self censorship or pressure from affected interests? 

In 2014 Karon Municipality permitted untreated sewage to flow across Karon Beach but at least they erected an apologetic notice (only in Thai and English) warning tourists "to be careful."

I guess it's time that I repeated my post of 19 November. 

"I have seen the "10% beach chair zones" growing so, out of curiosity, I measured the percentage of beach length covered by sun loungers on a few beaches. The blocks of umbrellas are easily visible on Google Earth and I think their measuring tools are pretty accurate. The measurements are based on satellite photos dated 16 April 2017, the end of last high season.

Karon Beach has 5 blocks of chairs covering 27% of the length of the beach (excluding chairs within Centara Grand perimeter)

Karon Nui Beach, occupied by the Meridien Hotel, has loungers on 40% of its length in 2 blocks

Kata Beach has 2 blocks of sun loungers covering 30% of the beach length

Patong has 5 blocks of sun loungers covering 16% of the beach  length, but these are 3 or 4 rows deep

We may expect further expansion of the "10%" zones in the current high season!"

I have seen the "10% beach chair zones" growing so, out of curiosity, I measured the percentage of beach length covered by sun loungers on a few beaches. The blocks of umbrellas are easily visible on Google Earth and I think their measuring tools are pretty accurate. The measurements are based on satellite photos dated 16 April 2017, the end of last high season.

Karon Beach has 5 blocks of chairs covering 27% of the length of the beach (excluding chairs within Centara Grand perimeter)

Karon Nui Beach, occupied by the Meridien Hotel, has loungers on 40% of its length in 2 blocks

Kata Beach has 2 blocks of sun loungers covering 30% of the beach length

Patong has 5 blocks of sun loungers covering 16% of the beach  length, but these are 3 or 4 rows deep

We may expect further expansion of the "10%" zones in the current high season!

8 minutes ago, Enoon said:

 

British tourist mistakes sign that says "Do Not Swim" for sign that says "Go Ahead, Jump in And Have A Laugh"?

 

(Or maybe there wasn't a policeman there to point at it at the time)

 

 

The red flags and 'Do not swim ' signs on Karon Beach have been taken over by the parasail operators and used to reinforce their efforts to keep beach users and swimmers away from their four exclusive landing and take-off zones. The signs are not erected by lifeguards and bear no relevance to the sea state.  This misuse of warning signs will further erode their credibility.

Below are some extracts from the response by the Airport Express company to a Question in the Phuket News of 20 September 2016 "Is the Phuket Airport Bus Still Running to Patong".

The company claims it doesn't have a website or email address and its office cannot be found!  They emphasise that no passengers may be picked up en route, (especially between Patong and Karon/Kata!). This company is clearly trying to deter passengers from using its service.

Extracts follow.

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Anybody remember this 2012 project by three professors and the students from Technishe Universitat Kaiserslautern and the Faculty of Architecture and Planning at Thammasat University which aimed "to make Kata-Karon liveable".

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Phuket Governor eyes interest in beach town beautification project

Phuket Gazette – Saturday, April 28, 2012 11:32:21 AM

PHUKET: Phuket Governor Tri Augkaradacha yesterday confirmed that he would follow up on proposals made by an international consortium of urban architects on how to improve the aesthetics of the tourist-popular Kata-Karon beachfront areas.

The news came at a meeting of urban planning academics from Technische Universitat (TU) Kaiserslautern in Germany, headed by Professor Dr Wolfgang Bohm.

His research team has been working in conjunction with a team from the Faculty of Architecture and Planning at Thammasat University in Bangkok on the project titled “The Kata-Karon Project: A model towards future development in Phuket”.

The combined teams identified the seven public areas or “issues of concern” that need attention:

1. Kata View Point

2. Karon Circle and Kata-Karon “city gates”

3. Karon Park

4. Improvement of streets and sidewalks, including road surface, footpath, parking, landscaping, bus stops and rubbish collection

5. Bus station at Kata-Karon Municipality Offices

6. Beach lifeguards

7. Tourist information center

Gov Tri said, “I will look into the development proposals of each project with the committee and we will consider them in the future.”
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That was the last public information on this project. As far as I know, the promised public exhibition of proposals to improve the aesthetics of Kata-Karon never took place. I suspect that any initiatives which upset the 'status quo' or the interests of influential local groups were quietly veto'd. 

There is dense, fast-moving traffic along Karon Beach Road making it difficult and dangerous for tourists to cross the road between the hotels and the beach. The bigger hotels have to employ red flag guards to help tourists cross.

There are several pedestrian crossings but drivers ignore them, creating an additional hazard. Uncontrolled parking of tuk-tuks and green plate taxis blocks sight lines so pedestrians and emerging vehicles cannot be seen.

It's an obvious location where the safety and interests of tourists should be considered. 

About 7-8 years ago a light-controlled pedestrian crossing was installed on the beach road south of Karon Circle. It created gaps in the downstream traffic stream  that allowed pedestrians a chance to cross. The lights worked for about six months, for the next two years they lapsed to permanent flashing amber,  then they went dark, and after 5 years rotted away and were removed.  This technology is beyond the local government's ability to maintain.

Another folly - about 20 years ago a pedestrian underpass was built under the northbound exit of Karon Circle. It's still there, open, and has never been used.

The most effective means of improving conditions for tourists on Karon Beach Road would be to require all through traffic between Karon Circle and Kata to use the inland bypass - Patak Road.  Beach Road would be for access only' and 'traffic calming' measures installed on the beach road, including wider footpaths and priority pedestrian crossing places. 

As Old Croc reports, a footpath is currently being constructed along the north side of Tania Road. In the absence of other measures, making the two roads that connect the beach road to Patak Road, alternate one-way will simply speed up traffic, and allow even more taxis and tuk-tuks to park, single and double, as in Patong.

It's very sad that the local authority, dominated by taxi and tuk-tuk interests, has so little understanding of good practice in the management of traffic and pedestrians and so little consideration of the interests of the tourists who provide their income. 

Anybody remember this idea from two years ago. Another bus proposal, unrelated to any plan, strategy or identifiable demand, Just somebody's brainwave, announced, a confused discussion, then forgotten.  Transport needs to be PLANNED!

Sorry for the underlined text - I can't delete the underlining.

Free Phuket airport shuttle bus in the pipeline

Thursday 14 May 2015, 01:58PM

PHUKET: A new free shuttle bus service, provided by Airports of Thailand (AoT) and running from the airport to Saphan Hin, Karon and Rawai were disccused a meeting held on Tuesday (May 12) to update on management progress at Phuket International Airport.

President of Phuket Tourism Business Association, Sathirapong Na Takuatoong (in glasses) doesn't want to upset the taxis.

Speaking about the new bus service, Lawyer and political advisor, Sarayuth Mallam proposed that there should be three lines; first would be Airport – Bangtao – Kamala – Patong – Karon (Beach Front line). Second, Airport – Bang Ku – Chaofa West – Rawai and third a city line to Saphan Hin.

However, President of Phuket Tourism Business Association, Sathirapong Na Takuatoong said, “If we want to do the shuttle bus it shouldn't affect the earnings of other people. We might focus on the waiting time, if you want to travel cheap you have to wait maybe half an hour for a bus to be available. That will not take advantage out of the metered taxis.”

Deputy Director of Airport Of Thailand, Phuket Office, Second Lieutenant Thani Chuangchoo said, “That would mean that there would then be two types of airport bus, one is a shuttle bus and the another is the airport bus.

“With the shuttle bus, when passengers take the route to or from the airport the bus will only stop at designated points, but with the airport bus this will stop anywhere along the route to pick up passengers.

“I think the shuttle bus is more universal but passengers will need to show their boarding pass before using the bus because it will be free.”

Gov Nisit stressed that the shuttle bus is necessary to meet the needs of airport passengers.

Currently, there are two routes for the airport bus – Phuket Town line (nine rounds) and Kata-Karon (12 rounds). However, these are not operated by AoT

Sec Lt Thani said, “The airport bus can be remained in operation because it is another choice for locals. But we will not allow them to be a minivan because we already have a concession for that type of vehicle.”

Jaturong Kaewkasi of the Phuket Office of the Transport Department said, “Actually, the reason that we use minivans is because sometimes there are not enough passengers for a bus, and if we use a bus it will cost us more money.”

PKCD’s previous announcement last November, of an ‘island wide’ bus network included a detailed map of six routes radiating from Phuket Town, as far as north as end of the Bypass and as far south as Chalong Circle, but of course excluding any link to the west coast to avoid any incursion into the monopoly of the taxi-tuktuk cartels.

PKCD’s current announcement is for a single route between the Airport and Darasamuth (Central Festival/Homeworks). The proposed route is indicated only by broad arrows but it duplicates most of the current Airport Bus to Phuket Town route which, despite serving Phuket Town and onward truck-bus connections, carries very few passengers.  Why then does PKCD want to operate  a bus route that obviously has very little demand?

The proposed route also duplicates most of the light rail route so the one hour bus journey time will be extended by having to negotiate fifty kilometres of LRT construction works including six underpasses.

The strangest part of PKCD’s proposal is that “when travellers come from the airport, they can put their belongings at Homeworks and their luggage will be transferred directly to their hotel, so they can get straight to their holiday experience.” The holiday experience will therefore begin with negotiating onward transport, minus luggage, to the west coast resorts with the various taxi cartels that infest Central Festival or waiting for the unreliable and primitive local truck buses. If PKCD can transport the luggage to a hotel, why can’t they also transport the travellers to their hotel?  We know the answer.

PKCD’s picture of the Mercedes Benz ‘Smart Bus’ to be used for the route is taken from a M-B promotion on ‘Motor Car Tube’ on the internet. It shows a left hand drive school bus which has a retractable ‘stop’ sign in English and Arabic. Perhaps PKCD has no idea what a high quality urban bus looks like!  

PKCD’s proposal illustrates the very limited scope for public transport if it must avoid incursion into the entrenched monopoly truck-bus routes or the west coast taxi monopoly.  

Actually, very few details of the light rail line have been published. Experience world-wide however shows that in almost all such systems costs are under-estimated  and ridership overestimated, by huge margins.

Most rail passengers are formerly bus passengers, so conventional wisdom is that you only consider investing in light rail when the corridor already has a very high bus frequency. The Phuket LRT corridor, except for Thalang, Phuket Town and Chalong, has mostly low-density ribbon development along the highway – businesses which have located there to provide access by private vehicles. There are virtually no buses so all future LRT passengers must transfer from private and informal modes.  This makes forecasting of demand little better than a guess, and the temptation for the proponents of the system to make unrealistic forecasts of demand is very strong. No estimates of demand, ridership, revenue and subsidy have been published.  

Also, no details of the LRT alignment, stations and depots have been published.  The LRT presents a dilemma: where LRT passes through narrow streets in Phuket Town, there is not enough road width to provide a segregated 2-way track: LRT must operate in mixed traffic and it will suffer delays at junctions even with signal pre-emption.  Incursions by motor vehicles on the track, including pedestrians crossing the road will cause conflicts.LRT will need to operate at less than 20km/h in these areas.

No doubt, substantial demand from the airport is assumed in the passenger forecast. But LRT will be slow - average speed probably no more than 30km/h including stops, negotiating congested city streets and junction delays.  It will take almost two hours from the airport to the terminus at Chalong.  No details have been published of how passengers will continue their journey from Chalong. Failure to provide a rapid and seamless interchange to another mode at acceptable cost will obviously be a major deterrent to use the LRT system at all. Add another 30 minutes for the onward journey to Kata, Karon and Patong.   

Relatively few tourists will use LRT, especially if the interchange at Chalong to the west coast resorts is not comfortable, reliable, cheap and direct to the hotel.  The current airport van service takes tourists direct to their Patong hotels for THB 180, albeit with dangerous driving and a compulsory stop at a tour agency to suffer some ‘hard sell’ tours.  An increasing proportion of tourists arrive on package tours and will be transported to their hotels by bus. Many flights from China arrive after midnight when LRT will not run. ‘Quality’ tourists and families will prefer the ‘limousine’ direct their hotel. Locals all have the option of private transport. It’s hard to foresee much demand from the airport. Just look at the empty Airport Buses to Phuket Town and the almost invisible “Airport Express” bus service.

So the headline of this article ‘details revealed of province’s Tramway project’ is very misleading. Very few details have been revealed of the alignment, road cross-sections, junction layouts and signalling, depots, interchange arrangements at both ends, passenger and revenue forecasts.

It looks very like a classic case of ‘build it and they’ll come.’

The Hotel Act (2008) requires any place that provides accommodation for less than one month in exchange for payment is defined as a “Hotel”, regulated by the Hotel Act, and requires a hotel license, but there are important exceptions.

Regarding short-term lets by condo owners, perhaps the Governor is not aware that (according to advice recently published by a prominent local law firm) a hotel licence is not required for any premises that: 

1) have less than five rooms; and

2) cannot accommodate over twenty guests at a time; and

3) the income being earned for such is merely “additional income”,

In these cases a license is not required but the owner must report to such accommodation activity to the relevant local authorities.

Thus, operators who are providing rentals of less than 5 bedrooms for less than 30 days AND only for “additional income”, could comply with the Hotel Act by simply reporting their activity to the relevant local authorities.

Without wishing to detract from the heroic image projected by our lifeguard contractor, it's obvious to anyone who spends time on Karon Beach that the men who operate the parachutes, jet skis and mats and umbrellas are wearing the 'lifeguards' uniform shorts. They bring the 'No Swimming' flags into disrepute by arranging them to keep people out of the wide swathes of beach that they reserve for their operations. Either the lifeguards are doubling up as beach business operators or more likely, the beach operators are wearing lifeguard uniforms to satisfy the numbers. What is clear is that no lifeguards are manning the lifeguard stations, watching swimmers or patrolling the beach.

I should add that the area outlined in yellow in the previous post lies between 110 metres and 140 metres above sea level.

There is some interesting data on the new Google earth scans.

The area of the foothills behind Karon, outlined in yellow in the attached screen shot, has been developed in the last two years with villas and roads.

We understand that no development is permitted above 80 metres, so how did all this development get approved?

The steep hillside site outlined in red was cleared and extensively excavated 2 or 3 years ago to form a platform, obviously in preparation for a building. An access road has also been gouged out of the hillside. Google Earth shows this platform to be 110 metres above sea level. It probably exceeds the maximum gradient for development too. Construction has not started but the site remains a scar on the hillside and soil is falling down the slope. We can assume someone thought it would be OK to develop this site.

What hope is there for Phuket's forested hills?

Perhaps Nai Harn will soon have a monumental black concrete tombstone like the one blighting Karon Beach.

Let me add my experience to this discussion. I'm a regular walker on a west coast beach for more than ten years.

I believe there are four sources of beach debris:

1. When it rains heavily all the garbage thrown into upper reaches of the streams ('drains') that run through all the west coast beaches is carried into the sea and then dumped on the beach by the onshore winds. This garbage include most of the local litter: plastic bags and bottles, food containers, shoes, M150 and Carabou bottles, rotten vegetables, cut vegetation, soil, tree branches and small timber running off construction sites. When the drains flood heavily the freshwater eels that live in these fetid waters also end up on the beach.

2. At all times except full moon, there are dozens of boats anchored off shore catching squid using bright lights. Other boats are trawling. Crews are mostly Burmese who discard all their waste into the sea so the on-shore wind blows it on to the beaches. This probably accounts for half the beach garbage and it consists of lengths of nylon rope, netting, round net floats, toothbrushes, oil cans, plastic Burmese cigarette cans, light bulbs, rotten vegetables and fruit, bottles cut in half for use as funnels, M150 bottles and a wide variety of other domestic-type waste.

The local fishermen also lay bamboo traps marked by buoys made of clusters of water bottles. These wash up often forming big tangles of bamboo, traps, rope and nets. Fish of no commercial value such as puffer fish are thrown into the sea dead, and rot on the beach.

3. Garbage left by beachgoers and vendors includes beer bottles, plastic water bottles, hats and clothes, toys, cigarette ends, polystyrene containers and plastic bags from convenience stores. Also a lot of coins. The land behind the beach is used as a toilet by the tuk tuk driver encampments.

4. Ocean garbage. There is a huge amount of floating garbage in the oceans. When the summer westerly winds blow across the Andaman, a lot of it is washed on to Phuket's beaches. The long-distance garbage can be recognised by the shellfish that attach to floating objects which take months to form a colony. Garbage that can float for months includes heavy mooring ropes, baulks of timber and tree trunks, bits of boats, lumps of insulating foam and a wide variety of mostly plastic debris and fishing gear. Among this garbage are the ocean-crossing plastic bottles. I often pick up un familiar-looking plastic bottles to see where they originated. yesterday I found one from South Africa. Bottles from the Maldives are quite common, and of course from Malaysia and Myanmar.

Yesterday I found a washing machine tub and a cathode ray tube TV.

So that's what you can expect to find on Phuket's beaches at this time of the year.

if you were a district government with a budget to manage and improve one of Phuket's key tourist attractions, would you consider erecting a huge concrete monstrosity at the edge of the footpath that blocks the view of the beach for the frontage properties and passers by?

It appears that this giant tombstone is intended to be a triumphal monument to the local governments' achievements in (mis)managing the beach.

Amazing Thailand!

At last, the bus service between the beaches we have been waiting for so long!

Here's how the 'solution' to the black taxi problem was reported one year ago.

"PHUKET: Illegal “black plate” taxi drivers have been given another four months – until February 28 next year (2013)– to register their vehicles for conversion to legal green plates, Vice-Governor Jamroen Tipayapongtada announced yesterday (October 18, 2012)" ...... Yesterday it was announced that 2,882 vehicles – minibuses and cars – have already been registered by their drivers for conversion. Officers have checked and have counted the illegal vehicles. All told there were 3,594 – 510 minibuses and 3,084 cars belonging to 186 groups around Phuket. Of these, 2,882 are already registered [for conversion to green plates].

Contrast that to today's announcement:

"Theerayut Prasertpol, the PLTD’s director, explained, “So far, 118 former black taxi drivers have been registered [as greenplate drivers] while another 200 are waiting for resolution of financial matters. Within three months we expect that we will be able to complete registration of about 70 to 80 per cent of the black taxis.”

So 318 black taxis will convert to green plates while the remainder of the 3,594 illegal taxis counted last year (plus the new black taxis that have come into operation since last year) will continue to operate illegally.

No there was 3594 Altogether, 2882 had already registered, this leaves 712 illegal. So if 318 convert now we are left with 394 from the figures given last year.

Not so. The 2,882 only registered to apply for green plates. When they saw that they needed to pay for insurance for passengers and higher registration fees, and it became obvious that there would be no enforcement, most of them did not proceed with their applications for green plates and removed the yellow stickers. I think only 118 black taxis actually got green plates. You need only to cruise the beach roads, there are hundreds of black taxis lining the roads, but almost no green plates.