Fares raised, or services suspended, say private buses

BANGKOK: -- Entrepreneurs of private passenger buses have threatened to suspend their services unless they are allowed to raise bus fares as they have requested.

The entrepreneurs, both the operators of private buses in Bangkok--including mini-buses--and those running cross-provinces bus services, said today that they could no longer bear the rising costs of fuel, caused by continuing global oil price hike over the past months.

The operators of the private city buses, who were granted concessions on certain routes from the Bangkok Mass Transit Authority (BMTA), even rallied at the Royal Plaza and the Ministry of Transport earlier on the day, demanding for the proposed fare rise and the government's assistance to solve the problem of overlapping services between the private buses and four-wheel passenger vans.

The protest which began this early morning had blocked the traffic near the parliament, causing the vote on the no-confidence motion against Transport Minister Suriya Jungrungreangkit in the House of Representatives to be delayed for about an hour.

The private city buses' operators agreed to disperse this afternoon after authorities of the Department of Land Transport had promised to solve the problem of the overlapping services with the four-wheel mini vans within 30 days, but vowed to definitely raise their bus fares by another Bt2.0 from 1 July.

"If we are arrested for the fare rise, all of our 5,000 buses will stop services in protest", they defied.

The authorities have threatened to arrest and take legal action against any buses which raise their fares without a government approval, pending the result of an official study on what should be the new bus fares amid the current oil price crisis.

The operators of the cross-provinces bus services also met the authorities at the Ministry of Transport today, requesting for a fare rise.

They said that unless they are allowed to raise the fares to cope with the rising costs of fuel, they would have no other choices, but suspend their services.

The operators noted that they would come up with proposals of new appropriate fares by the next couple of days.

--TNA 2005-06-30

Fares raised, or services suspended, say private buses 

...but vowed to definitely raise their bus fares by another Bt2.0 from 1 July.

"If we are arrested for the fare rise, all of our 5,000 buses will stop services in protest", they defied.

--TNA 2005-06-30

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Be prepared for traffic chaos in Bangkok.

Suspend services sounds good to me.

Less pollution and less ex-cons driving recklessly around Bangkok in large vehicles.

solve the problem of the overlapping services with the four-wheel mini vans within 30 days

what is it with this 30 days smegma? some sort of disease?

I presume they intend to raise the standard fares of taxis at the same time? many drivers I would expect to stop working as its pretty silly to do a 12 hour day for 50baht , or as sometime happens ... -50 baht or worse.

the effects of the fuel price increases are only just starting , the cumilative effects will be shocking - though I am sure the TRT will promise to solve it in 30 days.

The government should actually increase gas tax in the greater Bangkok area and stop subsidizing its cost throughout the country.

If they're not going to do a road pricing scheme, a la Singapore CBD, then this is the perhaps the next best thing.

The government should actually increase gas tax in the greater Bangkok area and stop subsidizing its cost throughout the country.

If they're not going to do a road pricing scheme, a la Singapore CBD, then this is the perhaps the next best thing.

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Agreed that Singapore is doing a good job in controlling it's vehicle population, but I think it will not work in Thailand.