Chiang Mai's Mass Transit System A Failure

[george]

Chiang Mai's mass transit system a failure

CHIANG MAI: -- A new city mass transit system in Chiang Mai has failed miserably as only an average of 3,000 people are using the service daily, causing Chiang Mai Municipality a monthly loss of more than one million baht. Chiang Mai mayor Boonlert Buranupakorn admitted yesterday that few people were using the services of the 26 city buses, offered by the municipality to relieve the growing traffic congestion and to replace the traditional red minibuses known as ''song taew.''

The new service, launched in May, needs to earn more than 100,000 baht a day in order to stay in business, but Mr Boonlert said so far it has earned only 50,000 baht a day.

On top of that the municipality is also required to pay daily compensation to 100 song taew drivers, who feared the new city buses would draw passengers away from them. The buses have so far run on only two routes. The service will later be extended to cover nine routes.

--Bangkok Post 2006-01-10

[rrose070]

I never SAW any buses.

[mobile69]

I never SAW any buses.

You can see quite a few parked up at the Nong Hoi terminus.

2 routes hardly makes a "system". Do the routes actually go into the centre of the city. The times I've seen them are on the ring roads & the east side of the river. I would have thought they'dd need to run along the radial routes converging on the moat.

[whopper]

"jai yen,jai yen".......I still can't believe they are actually on the roads!!!

Death to song-teaw!!!!!!!!

[Ajarn]

Seems to me that the songthaews are still the most practical answer to the streets, and the needs, of Chiang Mai presented so far...

It's just that there are too many un-organized songthaews running around downtown, in my opinion.

Edited January 10, 2006 by Ajarn

[jackr]

Yeah, down with the sawngthaew!...or the smelly ones at least. At any one time they make up a huge proportion of the traffic running around the moat (often empty) and must be pissing off the tourist population. Ok for coming in from afar, but keep the buggers out of town, clean up the tuk, tuks and instal an underground mass transit running to/from old/new airports, bus station to Thapae, train station to Thapae and bus station, Thapae to the Zoo and Night Safari, cable car from Thapae to Doi Suthep, and a road tunnel from the zoo to Mae Hong Son. ok, maybe not the cable car thing, but whatever happens, get those pollution machines out of the moat area.

[cdnvic]

If the drivers are collecting money they should put them on the bus and use them as conductors to collect fares. I agree.... enough of the songthaews. The tuk-tuks have character, as do the few samlors, but let the buses to the transit work and get rid of those ugly red things.

cv

[Ricardo]

YES - they are running, but with inadequate publicity. A visitor from China asked me, in DK-Books, whether there was a map available to show the local-bus routes, and I had to admit that I've not seen one yet. Descriptions on the roads-routes they run along, are only meaningful, if you know the names of roads !

Which of course tourists aren't.

I'm sure that useage will pick up (to coin a phrase) as they become familiar - but they won't be into profit overnight

[sabaijai]

If the drivers are collecting money they should put them on the bus and use them as conductors to collect fares. I agree.... enough of the songthaews. The tuk-tuks have character, as do the few samlors, but let the buses to the transit work and get rid of those ugly red things.

cv

Exactly. And how does 26 buses running two routes infrequently put 100 songthaew drivers out of work?

If they could just cut the number of rot daeng back by about half, they would be tolerable.

[p1p]

If they could just cut the number of rot daeng back by about half, they would be tolerable.

They really need to get their act together to stamp out the corruption in this regard and organize Rot Daeng to cover set feeder routes for the buses only – but it will never happen. Vested interests rule, as ever, and KO any chance for this country/city to progress anywhere other than further into the mire.

[polecat]

I think, as the original report says, it's just a matter of people not using the buses. I'm one of the many hypocrites who has spent years whinging about songthaew and calling for buses, but have not used one yet. I'm just far too selfish to give up using my own transport.

I see the buses plenty - several run along the riverside past Duke's, Gymkhana etc, and there are definitely buses running past my office on Changklor. If they ran inside the old city, I'm sure many of us would be complaining even more vociferously.

Yes,there's a songthaew mafia, yes they're pollution-belching deathtraps, but without people flocking to use the fixed fare, swish-looking new buses, why would anyone consider them sustainable?

Has anyone on this board used a bus yet? I know there are maps and routes available on the web...dammit, I resolve to use a bus this week.

[ovenman]

I'm one of the many hypocrites who has spent years whinging about songthaew and calling for buses, but have not used one yet. I'm just far too selfish to give up using my own transport.

I've never used one of the new buses either but on the other hand what am I going to do, ride to town on my motorbike, park somewhere and then take a bus?

Yes,there's a songthaew mafia, yes they're pollution-belching deathtraps, but without people flocking to use the fixed fare, swish-looking new buses, why would anyone consider them sustainable?

As long as the powers-that-be view public transportation as being a potential money-spinner as opposed to being primarily a method to remove a certain percentage of vehicles from the roads, it's probably bound to fail. Has anything been done to actually reduce the number of rot daeng plying the roads?

[chanchao]

I think the main cause is that the buses don't run the right routes that people would need. The most sensible one is actually #10 pink Ban Khwan Wiang bus.. The newer buses run on routes that were drawn up a decade (or more) ago, just because it was the easiest to arrange politically.

Secondly though, I DO like the Rot Daeng songthaews. Very, very, very convenient and one of the things that says 'Chiang Mai' when you see them. Drivers are mostly very reasonable, too. (with some exceptions of course, but that's inevitable). Overall nothing else comes close. (tuk tuks... yuck. Meter taxis.. not enough of them and are expensive, buses... run silly routes.).

[sabaijai]

I think the main cause is that the buses don't run the right routes that people would need. The most sensible one is actually #10 pink Ban Khwan Wiang bus.. The newer buses run on routes that were drawn up a decade (or more) ago, just because it was the easiest to arrange politically.

Secondly though, I DO like the Rot Daeng songthaews. Very, very, very convenient and one of the things that says 'Chiang Mai' when you see them. Drivers are mostly very reasonable, too. (with some exceptions of course, but that's inevitable). Overall nothing else comes close. (tuk tuks... yuck. Meter taxis.. not enough of them and are expensive, buses... run silly routes.).

Convenient when you need to flag one, but do you actually use them, Chanchao? I figured you had your own wheels by now. For those of us driving in the city, the rot daeng are the number-one cause of traffic tie-ups. I don't mind the expensive fares (relative to other towns in Thailand) and the smoke-belching, and I agree they look cute, but they really clog the roadways, most of them running empty or carrying only one or two passengers.

I used to use the 4 routes of the old yellow bus system all the time. It was after that system stopped that I finally broke down and bought a motorcycle, then later a car.

I have a friend who uses the numbers 6 and 10 buses a lot, he says they work well and are much more comfortable (better seats, air-con) than the rot daeng, at two-thirds the cost (10B vs 15B). It may catch on if the city gives it time. Most city bus systems in the Western world operate at a loss and are subsidised by city gov'ts.

[Fraktalkid]

For those wanting a map:

Chiang Mai Bus Map (rotate left 90 degrees)

Personally I wish that their route covered Chiang Mai university as well, surely there are lots of students wanting to go into the old city and beyond so including that would get a large number of younger people using the service.. but I guess there would be political issues there...

[ThunderDuck]

I was a daily user of Nos 6 and 10 up until a few weeks ago. No 10 has been running for a couple of years and these buses are usually half to three quarters full ... No 6 on the ring road usually only 3 or 4 people.

I agree that the routes need some fine tuning ... straight up Huay Kaew from the moat seems logical, but it seems there'd be resistance from the songtaew drivers.

Im not a big fan of the songtaew ... scraped my head too many times ... how do these guys get their political power?

Edited January 10, 2006 by ThunderDuck

[Ajarn]

If only they would use the cmu-type busses... Smaller, less polluting because they're electric, easier if you have bags.... Cheaper by far, too

Heck, I might even use one myself

As an addendum, I just wanted to add that the fewer the songthaews, the fewer your options as a passenger. That flexibilty in going anywhere (if the first won't go there, no sweat- plenty more to follow... ) is the major reason my housekeeper prefers them over any other option.

Edited January 10, 2006 by Ajarn

[ovenman]

...and one of the things that says 'Chiang Mai' when you see them.

Lampang, the horse cart city. Chiang Mai, the city of the red pickup truck? I can just see the TAT brochures now...

As an addendum, I just wanted to add that the fewer the songthaews, the fewer your options as a passenger. That flexibilty in going anywhere (if the first won't go there, no sweat- plenty more to follow... ) is the major reason my housekeeper prefers them over any other option.

That's true but if you follow that line of thought to an (admittedly absurd) conclusion, an infinite number of rot daeng on the roads should be great for everybody. As it is, there are simply too many of them now plying the streets empty.

I don't have a problem with the concept of the rot daeng per se. They do function pretty well as a share taxi system for the city. If there were some way to better regulate their operation: establish organized stops rather than permit drivers to halt anywhere, at any time, to pick up/discharge passengers; not allow them to drive around as an endless caravan of empties; enforce emissions regulations so that the vehicles didn't constantly belch black smoke; the songtaew operators could generate a lot more goodwill for themselves. People, including the city fathers, probably wouldn't be trying to do them in.

[rishi]

If I had 200 billion bath, I'd gladly donate 199.9 billion to a project making a 2-way traffic tunnel UNDER the moats - (after I'd spend the first 0.1 billion on buying up a few tourist oriented businesses on moon muang/kotchisarn).

On a smaller scale, I'll intellectually support every effort to cut down the number of red sorng thaews, circling the moats, into a 1/2 or even 1/3 - basically because of their cluttering the traffic flow.

However, the major incentitive for me to make this post, was some earlier poster's romantic view of the tuk tuks. I'm not a polution scientist, but I do beleive, that the smoke residues coming out from their two stroke engines, are much worse than that from the sorng thaews.

One thing is for sure. Sitting on my motorcycle behind a sorng thaew, doesn't feel too bad - just invoke some patience. Sitting on my motorcycle behind a tuk tuk --- stop breathing and overhaul as soon as you've got the chance (even if the overhaul is hazardeous).

(Sorry for my English, I got too carried away with the tuk tuks to bother about checking with the dictionary)

[mobile69]

I was driving behind one of the buses yesterday thru Nong Hoi. They're too big for inside the city. They can't pass slow moving motorbikes or parked cars sticking out a bit into the road unless there's no traffic coming the other way. Nowhere for them to pull over to pick up passengers. Seemed to be stopping anywhere to pickup - aren't they supposed to have "bus stops", or I guess they're grateful to find a willing passenger anywhere. Need to use these buses to bring people in from the suburbs & have smaller buses connect to get people into inner city areas, with a one ticket, good for one complete journey. sorry, just realised this is Chiang Mai, not Utopia Hope the powers that be don't give up on this project. Need to reduce the red pickups in number, cos passengers will take the first ride that comes along - you don't have to wait 15 minutes for a red pickup, so they get the fares.

[chanchao]

> Convenient when you need to flag one, but do you actually use them,

> Chanchao? I figured you had your own wheels by now.

I do.. But every couple of months I take those wheels to the dealer to get them serviced.. Which usually takes at least 2 hours, during which I don't want to hang around reading old copies of Ban lae Suan or Khoo Saang Khoo Son and all those while drinking Nescafe.

So on those occasions I'm reminded of the EXCELLENT public transport situation in Chiang Mai, being on my way mere seconds after exiting the shop I'm on way for a very reasonable 15 baht. (Resonable because they drive you to the exact spot you want to go.. Other towns may be cheaper (5 baht still in Patters is it) but if you want to divert from the main loop there then you start paying (more than) 15 baht there as well.

Do they hog traffic.. perhaps, but not more so than meter taxis manage to do on Sukhumvit road in Bangkok.

Note that another solution to the hogging of traffic is not to ban Rot Daengs but to just ban cars inside the Super Highway area.. That would solve the problem of both empty Rot Daengs as well as traffic congestion.