Chaengwattana Wait Queues and how to solve it...I think...

[behappy123]

I'm sure it's no surprise to anyone who has been here for a while and need to get their Work Permits, 90-Day Check ins, Renewals, Re-Entry Permits etc that the process is already painful but made worse by the long wait times.  I completely understand the need to have documents verified, an official government representative sign off, etc.  In my estimation it's a necessity, what isn't a necessity is the wait times.  With more people coming to Thailand, the problem is only going to get worse.

 

In the past few weeks, the morning line-up queue went from a line, to an officer handing out slips of queue numbers and now to an officer standing in front of an automated ticket generator to produce a queue number .  There is an obvious attempt to increase the order to the chaos and I think we can go a bit further.

 

The Problem:

Times a wastin'

 

On any given working day there are about 700-1000 people that would come through Chaengwattana for a slew of services.  Most of these people would probably travel 2 hours roundtrip, possibly even more.

 

On top of the travel, there is an approximate 4-6 Hour average waiting time for a majority of the people.  With about 8 sections (that I know of), each serving an average 100 people (some over 150, others around 50) that's about 800 people per day.  Note these are not exact numbers but it's not hard to extrapolate over the given year how many hours are wasted in waiting.

 

 

800 people waiting for anywhere from 4-6 hours for services comes out to potentially 1,200,000 hours of productivity lost which would amount to about 100,000,000 THB lost in economy per year...That's rough!

 

Though my numbers are a very rough estimate, I do see a way to reduce the wait time, however I'm probably missing quite a few factors.

 

The Solution:

I went ahead and created a very simple appointment system.  Book the timeslot that's available for the service you need.  Upload the documents you need checked.  Show up with the the documents in hand and get the signoff.

 

2 purposes, since you've registered and uploaded documents, officers would have the opportunity to check documents in advance and inform you of any errors or corrections needed (saving repeat trips).  Documents would be retained for future audits if necessary.

 

The second purpose served the reduction in wait times ultimately leading to less productivity hours wasted and money lost and less money lost means more money spent in the economy.

 

Show up on time, get out with minimal time wasted.  Sounds very easy but I know there are quite a few steps missing.

 

Implementation

Per section setup 1-2 counters for appointments and the others for Queues.  There are probably better ways to implement this.  Ideas Welcome ? 

 

Other Observations:

I did notice that there was an attempt at queues in the past though it seems to have been abandoned.  I can only guess at the reasons why.

 

If you have any helpful tips of ideas that could make this better, if I've made an error in calculation, what has been tried and didn't work in the past, or why this is a bad idea, I would like to hear your thoughts.

 

Thank you,

 

[JackThompson]

On reason this is unlikely, is that it would cut into the agent-money pipeline, often used to "skip the queue" (when not also used to bypass legal requirements).  Keeping the queues long (see Chang Mai threads, for the most extreme example) ensures a steady flow of agent-supplied envelopes.

 

That said, it is similar to the process at the Thai Consulate in Singapore, and absolutely no "honest" reason things should not be done this way.