We finally have the key to unlock Bangkok traffic chaos

[webfact]

OPINION

We finally have the key to unlock Bangkok traffic chaos  

By Siripa Jungsawat

 

If I asked you to close your eyes and imagine a Bangkok with far fewer cars on the street, you might have trouble visualising the scene. Those of us who live in the capital understand that traffic jams are an unavoidable part of life. 

 

Last year, Bangkok commuters spent an average of 64 hours in traffic, according to the INRIX Global Traffic Scorecard. The same report ranked Bangkok the 12th-most congested city in the world. Traffic snarls cost the Thai economy around Bt11 billion per year, according to Kasikorn Research Centre.

 

There are over one billion cars in the world. But as we see in Bangkok, the problem isn’t merely the amount but rather how cars are used individually. Next time you stop at Asok intersection, take a look at the cars around you.

 

Most will likely contain just one person – the driver.

 

Traffic congestion also means pollution. Twenty-two per cent of the world’s total carbon dioxide emissions comes from cars. 

 

The majority of cars spend 95 per cent of their time in parking lots. Parking lots take up to one fifth of a typical city’s space. And in Bangkok, cars parked randomly sometimes take up one or two lanes of a busy street, making it even harder for two-way traffic. 

 

Imagine the additional green space Bangkok could have if we didn’t need as many parking lots. 

 

Or imagine your typical crowded 

 

soi minus the parked cars, leaving roads open and cutting our commute times.

 

Uber launched in Thailand in 2014. Since then, it has been part of a growing conversation about ridesharing and its role in providing affordable, reliable alternatives to individual car ownership. 

 

In the past few years, there has been a tremendous increase in the popularity of ridesharing here and around the world. On a global scale, seven years after Uber’s launch in San Francisco, the ridesharing app has racked up over 5 billion trips in over 600 cities and 77 countries.

 

It’s changing the way people move around the city. In Bangkok, ridesharing complements other existing options of public transportation. For instance, 20 per cent of Uber rides start or end near a mass transit system. 

 

And ridesharing can make transportation even more affordable. UberPOOL allows a driver to pick up people going the same direction at the same time in order to combine what would be separate trips into one single ride. 

 

After seven months of operations in 2016, uberPOOL had cut 502 million kilometres of driving distance, saving about 23 million litres of fuel. Imagine what this could do for a city like Bangkok. 

 

Research in the United States shows that attitudes to individual car ownership are changing due to the accessibility of affordable and reliable alternatives. Morgan Stanley projects that by 2030, ridesharing will contribute to 25 per cent of the total distance driven globally.

 

Ridesharing also enables drivers to earn extra money at the push of a button, turning one of their biggest expenses – a car – into an economic asset. In Thailand, driver partners come from various jobs and backgrounds including office employees who drive after work, and people between jobs. 

 

Bangkok is known around the world as a top destination to visit, but rarely cited as a liveable city. By embracing shared modes of transportation using existing resources, that could change. 

 

If we take away Bangkok’s traffic and daily commute, we could gain back time with our family and loved ones. If we can embrace all the possibilities that technology brings, our dreams of a better city are more likely to come true. A city with more green space rather than parking lots, a city where there is freedom of movement because there is a choice and access to affordable and reliable transportation.

 

Cutting the number of cars on Bangkok streets might seem like an impossible task, attempted many times but always without success. But technology has given us a fresh opportunity. By seizing it we might just reclaim our city, our lifestyle and our daily commute from the snarled up streets we experience today.

 

Siripa Jungsawat is general manager of Uber Thailand. This column was written to mark World Car-Free Day, which falls today.

 

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/opinion/30327352

 

-- © Copyright The Nation 2017-09-22

[inThailand]

Thais do not ride share and will never pay for a taxi if they can drive their own car.

Want to reduce traffic... kill a boat load of drivers and tie their carcasses to other cars bumpers.

[canuckamuck]

46 minutes ago, inThailand said:

Thais do not ride share and will never pay for a taxi if they can drive their own car.

Want to reduce traffic... kill a boat load of drivers and tie their carcasses to other cars bumpers.

 

Why stop there, You could shoot people for buying unnecessary goods at the mall, and put their heads on pikes at the entrances. 

That ought to free up a few spots on the road.

[theguyfromanotherforum]

I don't believe it's only 64 hours.

 

Maybe 640 hours

[steve187]

the only way to reduce the congestion in Bangkok is to restrict the amount of cars using the road, be that by pooling, congestion charge, scrapping older cars, closing roads at certain times, more than one occupant lanes, but it will take some strong unpopular measures.

[inThailand]

I love GOT head on a stick! It does seem to be a deterrent.

 

On a serious note, so many parents drive their childern to school. A good even free bus service could reduce traffic. 

[VincentRJ]

18 hours ago, theguyfromanotherforum said:

I don't believe it's only 64 hours.

 

Maybe 640 hours

Yes. That's more like it. 640 hours a year translates to about 2 hours per day, say 6 days a week. The article should be corrected.

[theguyfromanotherforum]

7 minutes ago, VincentRJ said:

Yes. That's more like it. 640 hours a year translates to about 2 hours per day, say 6 days a week. The article should be corrected.

 

And even that is low. That's a normal commute in midsize city in North America.

[klauskunkel]

2 hours ago, webfact said:

We finally have the key to unlock Bangkok traffic chaos  

You mean you can change the impulse behavior of stopping and double-parking to get a roadside snack? Somehow I doubt it...

[fvw53]

to enter Singapore city cars are charged a fee which would create political storm in Bangkok

[Jonmarleesco]

1 hour ago, inThailand said:

I love GOT head on a stick! It does seem to be a deterrent.

 

On a serious note, so many parents drive their childern to school. A good even free bus service could reduce traffic. 

It could. But my son's school has a bus service which, when I enquired about it, is apparently routed term by term - or year by year - and this year, would have incurred a drive to the bottom of the road in which the school is located. Might as well go all the way. 

[Jonmarleesco]

19 minutes ago, fvw53 said:

to enter Singapore city cars are charged a fee which would create political storm in Bangkok

Nothing close to the London congestion charge. 

[Jonmarleesco]

'If we can embrace all the possibilities that technology brings ...' You mean like getting the RTP off their a__es to patrol the streets while updating the now antiquated computer system that is supposed to control the traffic lights? 

[richard_smith237]

Some of the Statistics in the Nations article seem quite out of whack...

 

64 hrs in traffic ? - that has to have been averaged every member of the population with or without a car, the number seems incredibly low for a regular car user... I'd guess closer to 300 hrs per year for the average 'office worker' who travels by car. 

 

One fifth (1/5) of Bangkok is taken up by car parks ?? No its not, unless they are counting every multistory car park as open space. 

 

 

The simple fact of the matter is that Bangkok has limited 'carrying capacity' i.e. does not have enough roads. In major Cities such as New York, London etc some 20-30% of the City's surface area is road, in City's such as Bangkok that number is closer to 8%, when combined with high vehicle ownership the problem becomes obvious... 

 

....Not enough roads, too many cars. The issue is further exacerbated with poor planning, no computerized traffic modeling, poor Policing and a cultural citywide self-centeredness on the roads which ultimately means many of the issues are self-perpetuating. 

 

[tigermoth]

23 minutes ago, Jonmarleesco said:

'If we can embrace all the possibilities that technology brings ...' You mean like getting the RTP off their a__es to patrol the streets while updating the now antiquated computer system that is supposed to control the traffic lights? 

Yes. The control of traffic lights is non existant here. On Sukhumvit alone lights are frequently left on red up to more than 3 or 4 minutes, a sure recipe for creating traffic congestion. In most countries the maximum red light time is about 30 seconds thus allowing a constant flow in all directions. Unfortunately here almost all lights are controlled by individual police at each intersection and rely totally on their cctv which does not go anywhere near creating the same movement that a centralised computer aided system does. We are still very much in the horse and cart age here.

[sawadee1947]

Not anything new. A govt. would have to give directions and promotion

[Happyman58]

1 hour ago, tigermoth said:

Yes. The control of traffic lights is non existant here. On Sukhumvit alone lights are frequently left on red up to more than 3 or 4 minutes, a sure recipe for creating traffic congestion. In most countries the maximum red light time is about 30 seconds thus allowing a constant flow in all directions. Unfortunately here almost all lights are controlled by individual police at each intersection and rely totally on their cctv which does not go anywhere near creating the same movement that a centralised computer aided system does. We are still very much in the horse and cart age here.

I agree some traffic lights stay red for ages cause lots of traffic cngestion

[Bangkok Barry]

3 hours ago, VincentRJ said:

Yes. That's more like it. 640 hours a year translates to about 2 hours per day, say 6 days a week. The article should be corrected.

And times that by, say, one million commuters each day. That is one hell of a lot of wasted hours.

[Bangkok Barry]

2 hours ago, richard_smith237 said:

 

The simple fact of the matter is that Bangkok has limited 'carrying capacity' i.e. does not have enough roads.

 

 

And many of the roads it does have are cul-de-sacs. Many of the roads off of Sukhumvit, for example, are not through roads, unlike the norm in cities in other countries,

[Golgota]

Siripa Jungsawat is general manager of Uber Thailand. This column was written to mark World Car-Free Day, which falls today.

 

A bit of advertising is always good

[NeoDinosaw]

7 hours ago, theguyfromanotherforum said:

I don't believe it's only 64 hours.

 

Maybe 640 hours

That is  more likely to be a monthly  or weekly figure