Red Line train fare to be reduced to Bt20 by New Year

[snoop1130]

 

The State Railways of Thailand (SRT) board agreed yesterday (Thursday) to cut the fare on the Taling Chan-Bang Sue-Rangsit Red Line train service to 20 baht, from a maximum of Bt42, tentatively by the New Year.

 

SRT Governor Nirut Maneephan said today that the fare reduction will cost the SRT about 80 million baht in lost revenue annually, which means that the SRT will have to seek compensation from the government.

 

Currently, about 20,000 commuters are using this suburban train service each day, which is 25% of the 80,000 commuters originally estimated, said the governor, adding that he expects the number of commuters using the service will pick up by up to 20% each year.

 

Full story: Thai PBS 2023-09-22

 

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[retarius]

How are the trains going to be able to run with this paltry fare? Where is the money going to come from to subsidise the railways? Ahhh the new taxes on farangs' pensions. Got it now. Thanks Srettha, how about you refund the million dollar airfare you paid to go to New York with your cronies?

Edited September 22, 2023 by retarius

[hotchilli]

11 hours ago, snoop1130 said:

SRT Governor Nirut Maneephan said today that the fare reduction will cost the SRT about 80 million baht in lost revenue annually, which means that the SRT will have to seek compensation from the government.

Maybe the lower cost might make a higher annual turnover with higher passenger numbers than now?

[jacko45k]

3 hours ago, hotchilli said:

Maybe the lower cost might make a higher annual turnover with higher passenger numbers than now?

At first I thought positive on this, get people on the trains, out of their cars, off the roads, all good. But does this line have capacity to handle more?.... Most of my metro rides in Bangkok I couldn't find a seat and was in close proximity to many!

(That and simplify paying .. as I get older these ticket machines outwit me!)

Edited September 23, 2023 by jacko45k

[kingstonkid]

3 hours ago, jacko45k said:

At first I thought positive on this, get people on the trains, out of their cars, off the roads, all good. But does this line have capacity to handle more?.... Most of my metro rides in Bangkok I couldn't find a seat and was in close proximity to many!

(That and simplify paying .. as I get older these ticket machines outwit me!)

The challenge is that the location of the Red Line ending in Rangsit is so out of the way.  

Yes, they will get more riders but the problem is going to be parking for all the people that drive to the stations.  Even at Khu Kot with it's "high" ticket price if you are not parked by 630 in the morning you probably are not going to get a parking spot.

 

You can do this with this line for awhile because everything is new so there is very little maint cost.  Let's see what happens when they raise the min wage, and things start to need repair or sched maint.  

 

Yeah, the other side of things is where is all this money coming from and not even taxing people who live here from out of the country is going to help.

 

People are going to think all these things are great and wonderful until the bottom falls out. 

 

Considering the beating the Baht is taking this week it will only get worse.

 

PT has always been a give the people what they want be populist nd be nice.  Reality has nev er been in the vocabulary.

 

If I was Srettha I would be looking at getting out of the position fast before things go sour and he is blamed in court just like the Shin family has all dealt with.