Cabinet approves BMTA plan to lease and buy NGV and hybrid buses 

By The Nation 

 

Arkhom

 

Bangkok Mass Transit Authority is ready to implement its business rehabilitation plan after the cabinet on Tuesday approves the plan, Transport Minister Arkhom Termpittayapaisith said after the cabinet meeting.

 

Under the plan, BMTA will lease 300 new Natural Gas for Vehicle (NGV) buses and 400 rental hybrid buses, as well as purchase 2,300 new buses including 489 NGV vehicles, 1,453 hybrid buses, 35 electric vehicle buses. It will also spruce up its existing 323 NGV buses.

 

Meanwhile, BMTA will set up an e-ticket system and also a QR Code transport fee system, enabling it to reduce its staff from the current 13,000 to 6,000 in 2022 under an early retirement program.

 

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/breakingnews/30371742

 

-- © Copyright The Nation 2019-06-25

Follow Thaivisa on LINE for breaking Thailand news and visa info

The face says it all.... Well thats sorted the Mia nois gifts for a while.????

Edited June 25, 20197 yr by colinneil

Oh dear...the old BMA bus purchase myth....billions of baht lost in past schemes and virtually zero busses....but have to hand it to them, the budgets keep coming in.

14 hours ago, snoop1130 said:

after the cabinet on Tuesday approves the plan

This is the NCPO-appointed cabinet whose existence is being challenged as unconstitutional in light of the newly elected PM (Prayut again) and NLA MP's. This cabinet frankly has no business approving anything whose duration extends into the time frame of the next cabinet that is already past due.

I took an ancient, old red-color non-AC bus with wooden plank floors on the way back from BKK Chaengwattana Immigration the other day. Driver and fare collector on board, and the driver blasted concert-level hip-hop music for the entire trip.

 

The ancient bus had been fitted with a couple of the electronic ticket reader machines at the center entry/exit doors of the bus. Both of the readers were covered and had signs on them in Thai saying "out of service." So there was the fare collector with his round coin box and little paper script tickets, probably pretty much the same as about 50 years ago.