Finish Maengmoom Card project or face cancellation, Airport Rail Link warns contractor

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Finish Maengmoom Card project or face cancellation, Airport Rail Link warns contractor

By THE NATION

 

 

Suthep Phanpheng, managing director of Electrified Train Co Ltd, the operator of Airport Rail Link, said the company’s project to develop a unified ticketing system "Maengmoom Card" had reached a phase where the private contractor must start testing the system immediately in order to meet the deadline.

 

“The system is scheduled to open in June according to the Ministry of Transport’s plan. However, the contractor was behind in developing the card reader system, meaning that they must start testing the system tomorrow (February 20),” he said.

 

“If the result is unsatisfactory, the company will consider fining the contractor at 10 per cent of the contract value or terminating the deal”.

 

Smart Technology Corporation Co Ltd won the contract for installing the card readers and related software with a quoted price of Bt105 million, significantly lower than the estimated price of Bt140 million.

 

“If we went with the option of cancellation, the contractor is still entitled to filing a lawsuit, but the company is confident that it has been following the contract and related regulations to the letter,” he added.

 

 

The unified ticketing system aims to join the services of three transport operators under the Maengmoom Card, including the MRT trains of Mass Rapid Transit Authority of Thailand (MRTA), Airport Rail Link trains of Electrified Train Co Ltd, and BTS trains of Bangkok Mass Transit System Plc (BTSC).

 

Currently there are some 400,000 Airport Rail Link Smart Passes in circulation, which Smart Technology Corporation will be responsible for making them compatible with the new unified ticketing system. The Maengmoom Card project also aims to extend the services to cover expressway and ferry users, as well as at convenience stores.

 

Source: https://www.nationthailand.com/news/30382418

 

-- © Copyright The Nation Thailand 2020-02-19

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[Caldera]

How difficult can it be, that has been discussed since about a decade!

 

Now that everyone and their dog already has a Rabbit card, just make the Rabbit card universal and be done with it.

[CLW]

That old chestnut.

Haven't been hearing about this for ages and thought is has been down the drain already. 

Of course not before skimming all the budget into dark channels and brown envelopes.

 

The last thing I remember is that there was a testing phase last year in October and it should be operational at the end of 2019. 

 

Same thing happened to the scam with installing smart card readers in all the BMTA operated busses. They are covered in shrink plastic wrap since months and probably broken until they start to use them.

[ThaiBunny]

1 minute ago, Caldera said:

How difficult can it be, that has been discussed since about a decade!

Obviously you know nothing about multi-modal transport cards. The first and most divisive negotiations involve how much share of the revenue each of the operators should get. I guess if you take the simplistic view that each operator gets whatever the point-to-point fare is, that's easy enough. However other cities in various places around the world have grappled with such a question for years. Suppose for example you either want now or may plan at some point in the future to introduce zone-based and time-based fares. I get on the BTS at Chong Nonsi, I change to the MRT at Sala Daeng, and then I transfer to the Airport Link at Makkasan. If the rules are, say, a fixed price for the "inner Bangkok" fare of 50 baht within a two-hour time span, how should that 50 baht be divided up between the three operators? Each of them will take the perspective that their mode requires the greatest share. Then the negotiation fun begins. You have only to look at how long, say, Sydney's Opal card took to be up and running from the first announcement that one was planned until the full implementation

[Caldera]

1 minute ago, ThaiBunny said:

Obviously you know nothing about multi-modal transport cards.

I know that they exist (and work very well) in many big cities I've visited. Bangkok came late to the party, so they could have learned from experiences gained elsewhere and should have mandated this from the start. I'm not interested in the technical details.

 

[Benmart]

2 hours ago, ThaiBunny said:

Obviously you know nothing about multi-modal transport cards. The first and most divisive negotiations involve how much share of the revenue each of the operators should get. I guess if you take the simplistic view that each operator gets whatever the point-to-point fare is, that's easy enough. However other cities in various places around the world have grappled with such a question for years. Suppose for example you either want now or may plan at some point in the future to introduce zone-based and time-based fares. I get on the BTS at Chong Nonsi, I change to the MRT at Sala Daeng, and then I transfer to the Airport Link at Makkasan. If the rules are, say, a fixed price for the "inner Bangkok" fare of 50 baht within a two-hour time span, how should that 50 baht be divided up between the three operators? Each of them will take the perspective that their mode requires the greatest share. Then the negotiation fun begins. You have only to look at how long, say, Sydney's Opal card took to be up and running from the first announcement that one was planned until the full implementation

The first sentence is unnecessary. The rest was very informative.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

2 hours ago, ThaiBunny said:

Obviously you know nothing about multi-modal transport cards. The first and most divisive negotiations involve how much share of the revenue each of the operators should get. I guess if you take the simplistic view that each operator gets whatever the point-to-point fare is, that's easy enough. However other cities in various places around the world have grappled with such a question for years. Suppose for example you either want now or may plan at some point in the future to introduce zone-based and time-based fares. I get on the BTS at Chong Nonsi, I change to the MRT at Sala Daeng, and then I transfer to the Airport Link at Makkasan. If the rules are, say, a fixed price for the "inner Bangkok" fare of 50 baht within a two-hour time span, how should that 50 baht be divided up between the three operators? Each of them will take the perspective that their mode requires the greatest share. Then the negotiation fun begins. You have only to look at how long, say, Sydney's Opal card took to be up and running from the first announcement that one was planned until the full implementation

 

Except, I think the revenue division question is more or less a separate issue from the technical/systems/operational function of the card reading system itself. 

 

The impression I get from the article is that they're still having ongoing problems with the card system itself, apart from any internal bureaucratic/political debates about how the fare revenues should be divided.

[CLW]

4 hours ago, ThaiBunny said:

Obviously you know nothing about multi-modal transport cards. The first and most divisive negotiations involve how much share of the revenue each of the operators should get. I guess if you take the simplistic view that each operator gets whatever the point-to-point fare is, that's easy enough. However other cities in various places around the world have grappled with such a question for years. Suppose for example you either want now or may plan at some point in the future to introduce zone-based and time-based fares. I get on the BTS at Chong Nonsi, I change to the MRT at Sala Daeng, and then I transfer to the Airport Link at Makkasan. If the rules are, say, a fixed price for the "inner Bangkok" fare of 50 baht within a two-hour time span, how should that 50 baht be divided up between the three operators? Each of them will take the perspective that their mode requires the greatest share. Then the negotiation fun begins. You have only to look at how long, say, Sydney's Opal card took to be up and running from the first announcement that one was planned until the full implementation

It was never mentioned in the press that there would be an introduction of a new pricing system. 

You still pay individual fares for each system as of now.

Benefit for the people is that you have to carry and manage only one card instead of 3 or 4 different cards. 

[MikeN]

5 hours ago, ThaiBunny said:

Obviously you know nothing about multi-modal transport cards. The first and most divisive negotiations involve how much share of the revenue each of the operators should get. I guess if you take the simplistic view that each operator gets whatever the point-to-point fare is, that's easy enough. However other cities in various places around the world have grappled with such a question for years. Suppose for example you either want now or may plan at some point in the future to introduce zone-based and time-based fares. 

But as there is no plan to bring in those zone or time based fares, and probably never will be considering the multiplicity of operators,  they should have just brought in a simple point to point system. Do that now, worry about an unlikely future event in the future.