Taxi cabs seek help from Administration Court

BANGKOK:-- The Taxi Drivers Association asked the Central Administrative Court on Friday to cancel a ministerial regulation forcing Bangkok cabs to run only on natural gas for vehicles.

Representative Wichet Thienthong named the Transport Ministry and Land Transport Department as first and second defendants, saying they abused their authority by placing too heavy a regulatory and financial burden on people.

Article 10 of the regulation issued last October 24 by then deputy transport minister Sansern Wongchaum requires that newly registered metered taxis in Bangkok have to be fuelled by NGV only.

The regulation, in effect since December 31, caused the Land Transport Department to refuse to register taxis without NGV tanks installed.

The drivers requested the court to revoke Article 10 and issue an injunction against its enforcement pending the ruling.

The court accepted the petition for consideration of whether the legal review and injunction were merited.

The complaint said the plaintiffs suffered greatly because not enough NGV stations - all operated solely by PTT Plc - were available, and each filling took too long, about one to two hours. During that time they had no fares.

Taxis registered before this regulation were mostly rented in two shifts - 6am6pm and 6pm6am, the writ said.

A taxi travels about 300 kilometres on one shift and consumes one kilogram of gas for every 7.5 kilometres. Since only two NGV tank sizes are available - a 100kilogram tank, which could last up to 150 kilometres, and a 70kilogram tank, which could go for up to 112 kilometres - one shift needed two fillings, which wasted a lot of time, the plaintiffs argued.

The regulation violated the taxi drivers' rights by giving them no choice in using other appropriate fuels and constitutional rights for people's vocation and fair competition by forcing people to use fuel from only one supplier, they said.

The association had submitted letters to PTT and the Land Transport Department seeking a delay or postponement of the rule but were turned down, the plaint said.

-- The Nation 2008-02-01

I see the bright minds at the Nation measure gas consumption by the kilogram...

each filling took too long, about one to two hours..

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Uh?? So it takes up to 2 hours to refill your gas tank? Why did it only take the taxi that I used last week some 5 minutes to refill his tank??

Simon

1 hour waiting in line.

30 minutes figuring out how to connect the hose to the tank.

5 minutes filling the tank

10 minutes waiting to pay

15 minutes waiting for change

Uh?? So it takes up to 2 hours to refill your gas tank? Why did it only take the taxi that I used last week some 5 minutes to refill his tank??

Simon

Probably because it was LPG rather than NGV. NGV takes a much longer time to transfer from reports I have read.

Uh?? So it takes up to 2 hours to refill your gas tank? Why did it only take the taxi that I used last week some 5 minutes to refill his tank??

Simon

Probably because it was LPG rather than NGV. NGV takes a much longer time to transfer from reports I have read.

Yep, interestingly the vehicles we had in Delhi were pure NGV. Filled in about 5 minutes, but from a high-pressure filling system (very high, the hose came off once, lots of flailing around before the cutout tripped). The filling stations currently in use in Thailand are low-pressure, they certainly take a l-o-n-g time to fill

India is very advanced in the use of NGV, most autorickshaws (tuktuks) and taxis use it, Delhi has the worlds' largest fleet of NGV buses some of which are VERY old but seem to run just fine and no belching black smoke.

Note to florin, yes NGV and LPG quantity is measured by the kilogram (look on your cooking gas tank), volume (litres) is really meaningless for a gas as the volume changes significantly with pressure and temerature.

Great info Crossy, I stand corrected...

Great info Crossy, I stand corrected...

The numbers still don't stack up.

If a tank has 100kg of gas and the cars run 7.5km/kg it will run 750km/tank surely so its one filling every 2 shifts?

Cheers

Great info Crossy, I stand corrected...

The numbers still don't stack up.

If a tank has 100kg of gas and the cars run 7.5km/kg it will run 750km/tank surely so its one filling every 2 shifts?

Cheers

1.5 km/1 kg for NGV and 7.3 km/1 KG for LPG according to an friend who is selling NGV Products.

Cheers.

Great info Crossy, I stand corrected...

The numbers still don't stack up.

If a tank has 100kg of gas and the cars run 7.5km/kg it will run 750km/tank surely so its one filling every 2 shifts?

Cheers

1.5 km/1 kg for NGV and 7.3 km/1 KG for LPG according to an friend who is selling NGV Products.

Cheers.

kg for kg I would have assumed they would be very similar.

Where is Naam its his kind of question.

Cheers

1 hour waiting in line.

30 minutes figuring out how to connect the hose to the tank.

5 minutes filling the tank

10 minutes waiting to pay

15 minutes waiting for change

will give them sufficient time to air out the odour that you find in most taxi's

"kg for kg I would have assumed they would be very similar"

The difference has to do with the amount of energy (generally measured in BTUs) per weight.