Koh Samui: Island spends 265 million baht on upgrading CCTV/ street lighting "to inspire confidence of tourists"

 

Picture: 77kaoded

 

77kaoded reported that a meeting was held on Koh Samui regarding a campaign to update the holiday island's CCTV and street lighting. 

 

The campaign is designed to raise safety to promote tourism. 

 

Top of the agenda was an effort to try and limit the number of road accidents on Samui.

 

It's all part of plans to promote the island as "Koh Samui Smart City".

 

The 1,044 new 4K cameras throughout the island would be controlled at the SSCCC - Samui Smart City Command Center.

 

Mayor Ramnet Jaikwang led the meeting saying that Samui had had an explosion in tourism and it was important for the infrastructure to catch up and for tourists to have confidence. 

 

Some 4,733 new street lights are also being installed to help in the safety campaign.

 

Source: 77kaoded

 

 

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That's a lot of money to spend following half a dozen people about.

Let's waste some money on the unimportant stuff. Cameras do not stop accidents. They record what happened.

 

Which tourists are we referring to here?

2 minutes ago, CelticBhoy said:

That's a lot of money to spend following half a dozen people about.

You are obviously not on Samui at the moment.

35 minutes ago, webfact said:

Koh Samui: Island spends 265 million baht on upgrading CCTV/ street lighting "to inspire confidence of tourists"

I see there's no mention of the budget for "planned maintenance" to ensure the system is kept running.

(Google translate just returns a 404 error when I try it)

 

Suppose we'll just have to wait for the reports of how they couldn't monitor a particular event due to the camera concerned 'not working'.

Then there will be a meeting to upgrade the system to an even better all-singing-all-dancing one - again without any maintenance.

 

<For the hard-of-learning: The text above may contain traces of sarcasm>

yep, nothing says "we've got a crime problem.." more than CCTV everywhere 

1 hour ago, webfact said:

Island spends 265 million baht on upgrading CCTV/ street lighting

Cha - Ching. ????

How about doing something about the Taxi Mafia if they want to improve 'Tourist Confidence' !

21 minutes ago, trainman34014 said:

How about doing something about the Taxi Mafia if they want to improve 'Tourist Confidence' !

GRAB is already fixing that.

cctv at 3 million a pop, that could be bought online for 50k, would not surprise me

Will repair/fixing long out of order traffic lights come next?

4 hours ago, webfact said:

 

Mayor Ramnet Jaikwang led the meeting saying that Samui had had an explosion in tourism and it was important for the infrastructure to catch up and for tourists to have confidence. 

key word here is HAD. thailand had an explosion of tourism but that is now dead. mayor rama lama ding dong seems to be koo koo for coco puffs. 

2 hours ago, Bender Rodriguez said:

cctv at 3 million a pop, that could be bought online for 50k, would not surprise me

Where on Earth are you getting "3 million a pop" from?

5 hours ago, 2long said:

Which tourists are we referring to here?

Samui is quite busy where I am. The numbers for the villas that we manage :-

July 2018   64 check ins and 61 check outs

July 2019   89 check ins and 89 check outs (the year of the Chinese invasion on Samui)

July 2020   60 check ins and 67 check outs

I am still receiving bookings for July as I type this.

With zero overseas tourists this year, we are more busy this month than in the same month in 2018.

Quite a lot of the high end hotels are fully booked at the moment.

Samui is a long way from dead. Yes, people are struggling in most businesses, but there are quite a few tourists on the island. The secret is to make them want to come back.

2 hours ago, pennine said:

Will repair/fixing long out of order traffic lights come next?

The traffic on the ringroad flows better when they're turned off. 

And once you're done on Koh Samui then move onto Koh Tao. The death rate of "dirty farang" there is - by square metres, the highest in Thailand .......... Pathetic idiots, the whole bunch! 

Sad for the Island ... people losing their businesses because the Island is dead empty and will be for another 6 month.

Roads are a nightmare right now, people have nothing to eat, a huge garbage problem but Government spends money

on Surveillance !!! Says it all really.

 

All the new street lights are actually 5G devices !!!

This time they might even turn them on ... not like the old ones who only ran when some (so called) VIP came along.

 

 

PS:

Just in case somebody comes up to say the Island is busy: It is not ! Not even in my wildest dreams. EVERYWHERE I look.

Did they ever fix the garbage problem and the eternally broken incerator ? Some blink bling villas and hotels don't feed the crowd. Lamai and Chaweng actually are cemetary like.

The people committing the real crimes are never going to get in trouble 

All very well installing these and new lights but most of the time they aren’t even switched on !!

And what is the point of cctv anyway in Thailand ? Prime example was the thug so called celebrity fighter that slapped a petrol pump attendant on camera. He paid her a few thousand bht and that was it done with , despite what the police say about charges .

Lets also not forget that about half the people on the road don’t have insurance so if you do and your car gets hit then the person who hit you won’t be paying a penny to sort it and will try blame you despite video evidence . 
Suit them better to sort out the garbage collection or a proper street sweeping vehicle that can clear all the dirt and sand of the roads that cause a lot of bike accidents.

I don't recall tourists or expats complaining about lack of safety due to too little street light, and not enough CCTV security cameras; Samui is not that bad, after all, and quite a number of private CCTV cameras have shown useful in some cases, for example traffic accidents.

I could imagine that about 250 million baht would be well spend on for example garbage infrastructure improvements, like getting the incinerators working, and avoid further news articles about that problem; and at same time sort out some collecting points with proper garbage containers, instead of folk just dumping garbage bags at the side of the road. The latter I've heard tourist complaining about, so it could be an important improvement. And the majority of tourists probably don't complain, but still don't think it's the expected amazing part of Thailand...????

 

By the way, what happened to all the new fancy street lamp post with underground wiring put up a few years ago on parts of the the Ring Road, and taken down less that two years after due to new sewers being installed..?

3 hours ago, Tropicalevo said:

Samui is quite busy where I am. The numbers for the villas that we manage :-

July 2018   64 check ins and 61 check outs

July 2019   89 check ins and 89 check outs (the year of the Chinese invasion on Samui)

July 2020   60 check ins and 67 check outs

I am still receiving bookings for July as I type this.

With zero overseas tourists this year, we are more busy this month than in the same month in 2018.

Quite a lot of the high end hotels are fully booked at the moment.

Samui is a long way from dead. Yes, people are struggling in most businesses, but there are quite a few tourists on the island. The secret is to make them want to come back.

That's good you are getting business but are this month's figures anything to do with all the national holidays there is

Soon to be connected to the Smart BMW's at immigration, so they can track all of us expats. ????

Yet there are allot of thais that cannot collect their social  security  of 5000 baht during the covid19 crisis

 

 

I wish I had the contract to supply these i would be rolling in doh

3 hours ago, brain150 said:

Sad for the Island ... people losing their businesses because the Island is dead empty and will be for another 6 month.

Roads are a nightmare right now, people have nothing to eat, a huge garbage problem but Government spends money

on Surveillance !!! Says it all really.

 

All the new street lights are actually 5G devices !!!

This time they might even turn them on ... not like the old ones who only ran when some (so called) VIP came along.

 

 

PS:

Just in case somebody comes up to say the Island is busy: It is not ! Not even in my wildest dreams. EVERYWHERE I look.

There is already a poster saying its busy and honky dory.

 

instead of this cost how about police just do their jobs.

Ahh. The regime control expands to see everything we and Thai do. BS. 

3 hours ago, baansgr said:

That's good you are getting business but are this month's figures anything to do with all the national holidays there is

Of course. But there is usually a holiday somewhere in July.

The biggest factor in this month's figures are the number of people checking out because of the late announcement of the amnesty. More check outs than check ins.

Guests that have been here since lockdown are finally leaving, but they are not in the check ins number. They have been here since March.

Lots of Thais driving here because it is suddenly cheaper, so lots of weekenders every weekend so far.

International school teachers and embassy staff from Bangkok on school holidays cannot or do not want to go back to the UK. But July is always 'school holiday' time here. Usually from Europe. This year from Thailand.

September will be the real litmus test. But again, September, October, November for us have always been quiet. It is our low season. Asians bumped up the number for those months last year but there will be none of them this year. Back to 2018 levels.

It is not just my business that is busy. In this area there are a number of agents/developments renting villas. They are ALL busy (over 200 villas in the area). Why rent 4 hotel rooms when you can rent a 4 or 5 bedroom villa with a pool and a sea view? These guests do not go to bars. Shopping, restaurants and staying at home is the preferred option for these guests. Bars on Samui have been struggling for years (except in Chaweng which is struggling now). Bangrak, Bophut, Choengmon has not had a lively bar scene for years.

4 hours ago, brain150 said:

PS:

Just in case somebody comes up to say the Island is busy: It is not ! Not even in my wildest dreams. EVERYWHERE I look.

I have not said that the whole island is busy but it is very busy where I am. Samui is quite a large island.

So where are you looking?