Pattaya: 500 taxis and "baht buses" gathering dust as Covid Wave 2 proves worse than the first

 

 

Image: Sophon Cable TV

 

The head of Pattaya's public transport association has painted a grim picture of the effect of the Covid second wave and the placing of the resort in the severest Red Zone restrictions. 

 

Taxi drivers and song thaew drivers (called baht buses at the resort) are packing in the job and seeking new employment or just going home to their up country villages. 

 

500 vehicles are simply gathering dust as only a skeleton service remains for the locals in Pattaya. 

 

All the tourists - Thai and foreigners - have simply vanished.

 

Tawat Pheuakbunnak - chief of the Pattaya Bus Co-Operative - said that the first wave of the pandemic had a devastating effect on his members with there being no foreign tourists.

 

But with government stimulus measures and the events held in Pattaya there were genuine signs that the corner had been turned and drivers were returning to their vehicles. 

 

Then came the second wave and, said Tawat in an interview with Sophon Cable TV, it is proving much worse than the first.

 

He said that his organisation is responsible for 712 song thaews and 170 taxis and in total there are 1000 public vehicles in Pattaya.

 

Of these now 500 have stopped offering a service - 50% of the total. 

 

He said that there were so few customers that there was no point for drivers to rent or fill up with gas. 

 

Many had gone to find other jobs or simply returned to their homes in the provinces. 

 

A service of sorts was still running with Covid protocols in place like hand gel and insistence on registering with the Thai Chana app, he said.

 

Source: Sophon Cable TV

 

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They provide a good service during Covid; happy to wait for passengers who have to cross the road to get to the bus and no moving off whilst you are still getting on. They value the customers they have now; I hope it lasts post-Covid.

This is a good opportunity to repair all the "broken" taxi meters.

everyone is going home, every 2nd shop on the sois around me closed.

that still doesnt mess up my life but the shut down of massage places do

48 minutes ago, champers said:

They provide a good service during Covid; happy to wait for passengers who have to cross the road to get to the bus and no moving off whilst you are still getting on. They value the customers they have now; I hope it lasts post-Covid.

and it took covid to make them do what they should have been doing all along.  Especially so with the taxi drivers in Patts and Bangkok. They have been taking tourists for a ride (excuse the bad pun) for years. 

2 hours ago, rooster59 said:

He said that his organisation is responsible for 712 song thaews and 170 taxis

Amazingly not one meter has worked in all 170 taxis - The New Bermuda Triangle.

3 hours ago, champers said:

They provide a good service during Covid; happy to wait for passengers who have to cross the road to get to the bus and no moving off whilst you are still getting on. They value the customers they have now; I hope it lasts post-Covid.

Finally.  Their service is horrible.  Very rude, sometimes don't fully stop for you to get on.  Pass on the left or right.  Run red lights.  Cut in front of you.  Wait for the truck to be packed to the rim before heading out.  And...open air. So you get to suck in all the fumes and dirt.

 

Time for Pattaya to implement a proper mass transport system.  Worst case, some nice buses with regular routes and proper bus stops.  Kinda like what Bangkok has.

2 hours ago, Pilotman said:

and it took covid to make them do what they should have been doing all along.  Especially so with the taxi drivers in Patts and Bangkok. They have been taking tourists for a ride (excuse the bad pun) for years. 

You should come to Phuket, 

said Ta wat in an interview

 

Every time I type that it gets deleted

Once all this Covid eventually finishes they will go back to ripping tourists off. They won't learn anything from these hard times.

No one should dissuade the Thais from destroying their own economy. The exchange rate has still not budged. We need a return to 1998 rates.

1 minute ago, KhunFred said:

No one should dissuade the Thais from destroying their own economy. The exchange rate has still not budged. We need a return to 1998 rates.

That was just a blip.  Before that, it was in the mid 20's for a long time.

3 hours ago, Peterw42 said:

This is a good opportunity to repair all the "broken" taxi meters.

You are cheating Mikebell out of his job!

40 minutes ago, Jeffr2 said:

Finally.  Their service is horrible.  Very rude, sometimes don't fully stop for you to get on.  Pass on the left or right.  Run red lights.  Cut in front of you.  Wait for the truck to be packed to the rim before heading out.  And...open air. So you get to suck in all the fumes and dirt.

 

Time for Pattaya to implement a proper mass transport system.  Worst case, some nice buses with regular routes and proper bus stops.  Kinda like what Bangkok has.

Totally agree, horrible people.

Who cares, first got rid of buses full of Chinese, clogging up Pattaya roads, now delivery drivers and others, not having to avoid baht buses!

4 hours ago, rooster59 said:

in total there are 1000 public vehicles in Pattaya.

 

Of these now 500 have stopped offering a service - 50% of the total. 

 

Thank you for working out this difficult % for us. 

56 minutes ago, Jeffr2 said:

Worst case, some nice buses with regular routes and proper bus stops.  Kinda like what Bangkok has.

Ok, ship the Bangkok buses to Pattaya & give Bangkok new ones.

12 minutes ago, JeffersLos said:

 

Thank you for working out this difficult % for us. 

They should reduce capacity by 50% by removing one of the 2 rows of seats! 

Baht buses are very reliable in partita, I hope they can survive.

1 hour ago, notasmartassknowitallfarag said:

Once all this Covid eventually finishes they will go back to ripping tourists off. They won't learn anything from these hard times.

 

bingo. they will swarm back down from the villages just as quickly as they scattered. 

1 hour ago, HashBrownHarry said:

Totally agree, horrible people.

There are some exceptions. For a while, I was using a cane, due to an injury. I climbed onto the back of a songteaw which was packed, and the driver stopped and made two seated customers ride on the back platform in order to give me a seat. He said he was afraid I would fall off. ????

41 minutes ago, kevin612 said:

Baht buses are very reliable in partita, I hope they can survive.

As long as you travel their route, and are willing to wait for them to fill up.  Otherwise, they are not reliable.  Try getting to the very end of Jomtien beach.  Many times, they'll just tell you to get out as they don't want to travel to the end, even though they agreed when you got in.  Terrible service for many.

19 hours ago, scammed said:

everyone is going home, every 2nd shop on the sois around me closed.

that still doesnt mess up my life but the shut down of massage places do

 

Yes , a lot of people have returned home and the result is a lot of little provincial towns are a lot busier than before. If I go into our nearest town ( 5 km away ) to the night market it is as busy as hell with more food stalls than before. Even got a kebab stand now which we never had before. Also see more tattooed young girls around but wife wont let me gawk. 

36 minutes ago, KhunFred said:

There are some exceptions. For a while, I was using a cane, due to an injury. I climbed onto the back of a songteaw which was packed, and the driver stopped and made two seated customers ride on the back platform in order to give me a seat. He said he was afraid I would fall off. ????

You are correct, there's always exceptions but the majority of them are horrible individuals.

Its good that some of the all powerful Taxi Mafia are being weakened.

There are far too many of these things clogging up the Streets.

39 minutes ago, HashBrownHarry said:

You are correct, there's always exceptions but the majority of them are horrible individuals.

That's why you have to have your mutually recognizable list of regulars of good people to ride with . There are only about 15 or so ,by bus number ,that I take

 

Must have been napping, when was the first wave ? Very hard to believe all this commotion and hardship could be caused by a death rate of 0.00009% per capita per year, especially when one considers that road accidents claim a percentage a few hundred times higher ???? By that I mean that last year the number of people dying in 365 days roughly equates to the number killed PER DAY ????

5 hours ago, Jeffr2 said:

Finally.  Their service is horrible.  Very rude, sometimes don't fully stop for you to get on.  Pass on the left or right.  Run red lights.  Cut in front of you.  Wait for the truck to be packed to the rim before heading out.  And...open air. So you get to suck in all the fumes and dirt.

 

Time for Pattaya to implement a proper mass transport system.  Worst case, some nice buses with regular routes and proper bus stops.  Kinda like what Bangkok has.

Yep.  I have got to say that I don't have much sympathy for them. 

3 hours ago, KhunFred said:

There are some exceptions. For a while, I was using a cane, due to an injury. I climbed onto the back of a songteaw which was packed, and the driver stopped and made two seated customers ride on the back platform in order to give me a seat. He said he was afraid I would fall off. ????

afraid for himself, not you. 

Even pre Covid, Pattaya was saturated with overflowing bhat buses everywhere as they were annoying honking at you as soon as you step outside.