Former Bangkok Governor Sukhumbhand Woos Commuters

[doctorproc156]

The bigger question is, when is the BMTA going to modernize it's bus system? A lot of other countries have bus systems as efficient as trains and there are still a lot of suburbs that have zero/severly inadequate public transportation access.

They have actually bought some new buses, flashy yellow, Chinese ones that seem to be falling apart after running for a couple of years, while the brown Japanese buses they bought a couple of decades ago still run smoothly. But the buses will be stuck in the traffic anyway, so why bother...?

I was referring to the suburbs, there still are quite a large number of roads and areas in Bangkok that don't have too much traffic. The whole approach to this is wrong, instead of building park and rides, they should have feeder bus lines.

[EyesWideOpen]

When traveling by BTS these days,... has anybody noticed, how bad the breaks were for a couple of weeks now. I mean, when it stops at a station, the train is shaking 2-3 times...

That makes me think something is wrong with the maintenance of the train engines... anyone experiencing the same????

Usually it only does that when the rails/wheels are wet.... when raining.

No serious, man. I've felt that robbl-robble-shaky stop to such an extreme like I never felt it before when taking the BTS these days.

Yep, interesting stuff happens when you replace the Siemens trains with noname Chinese ones... You'll probably notice that the only ones that have the braking problems are the ones with 4 cars and flashy lights above the doors.

I was in Bangkok a few days ago. Yes just as I was admiring the flashy lights over the doors telling me my location, the train

came to a really bad jerky stop at the station. Are those really Chinese trains ???

[zakk9]

I think the BRT was a huge success, no?

Was.

If you mostly move within the areas where it operates, and if you are willing to pay the increasing prices for the service, it still works fine. But for the majority of Bangkokians, it has little or no value. With the new lines that are popping up having their own ticketing system, it will be too costly for the majority to use the system on a daily basis if they have to use two or more lines, since the cost per day will easily run up to between 1 and 200 baht per day.

[zakk9]

The bigger question is, when is the BMTA going to modernize it's bus system? A lot of other countries have bus systems as efficient as trains and there are still a lot of suburbs that have zero/severly inadequate public transportation access.

They have actually bought some new buses, flashy yellow, Chinese ones that seem to be falling apart after running for a couple of years, while the brown Japanese buses they bought a couple of decades ago still run smoothly. But the buses will be stuck in the traffic anyway, so why bother...?

I was referring to the suburbs, there still are quite a large number of roads and areas in Bangkok that don't have too much traffic. The whole approach to this is wrong, instead of building park and rides, they should have feeder bus lines.

And not use those shiny, new cars? You must be dreaming. Or are you from another planet, maybe, some civilized country?

[smutcakes]

10 baht! bloody populist policies.

On a serious note, is it under his authority to regulate the cost of fares? Would the operator who won the concession not be in charge of setting fares?

No, it is usually the government that sets fares. The operator operates and collects.

Sent from my HTC phone.

According to the other paper today, it seems you were incorrect with this.

[whybother]

10 baht! bloody populist policies.

On a serious note, is it under his authority to regulate the cost of fares? Would the operator who won the concession not be in charge of setting fares?

No, it is usually the government that sets fares. The operator operates and collects.

Sent from my HTC phone.

According to the other paper today, it seems you were incorrect with this.

Yes. The government sets the price range, and the operator sets the fares within that range.

With the buses, I'm pretty sure the government sets the fares. But they must subsidise the operator where they have free buses.