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MRTA to cut Purple Line train fares to boost passengers

 

 

BANGKOK: -- Starting September 1, train fares for the newly-launched Purple Line will be halved from two to one baht per kilometer distance which will make the fare for the entire route from Taopoon and Bangyai or vice versa only 29 baht instead of 42 baht as it is the case now.

 

On top of that, the train fare of the Blue Line between Hua Lampong and Bangsue will be reduced from 70 baht to 57 baht for the entire route.

 

However, the discount prices are for passengers who use the smart cards which are available at all train stations. Passengers who buy train tickets for single trips will still pay the same fares.

 

The discount train prices were agreed at the board meeting of the Mass Rapid Transit Authority of Thailand and the Bangkok Expressway and Metro Public Company to encourage more people to use the Purple Line after its launch two weeks ago which saw an average of about 20,000 passengers using the service each day against the projection of 70,000 passengers/day.

 

The starting fare of the Purple Line remains unchanged at 14 baht for the first kilometre but the fare for the rest of the route which has 16 stations is one baht per kilometer instead of two. The new fare for the entire route covering 16 stations is 29 baht instead of 42 baht.

 

MRTA board chairman General Yodyuth Bunyathikarn said the board of MRTA and BEM also agreed to adjust down the parking fee for cars which park at the MRTA’s parking lots.

 

The new parking fee for two-hour parking is set at five baht instead of 10 baht and the monthly parking fee is halved from 1,000 baht to 500 baht.

 

General Yodyuth said that the discount fares are effective during the period when the connection between Bangsue station of the Blue Line and the Taopoon station of the Purple Line is yet to be fixed which is expected to take about five months.

 

Currently, a free bus service to link between the two points is provided to passengers who want to connect from one route to another.

The general hopes that the discount fares will boost the number of passengers using the Purple Line by about 30 percent.

 

Source: http://englishnews.thaipbs.or.th/mrta-cut-purple-line-train-fares-boost-passengers/

 

-- © Copyright Thai PBS 2016-08-25

[Thian]

Something has changed in Thai thinking.

 

Normally they would raise the price if less customers. 

[BigBadGeordie]

This is the first time I have such a marketing approach in Thailand. The norm here appears to be, customers down 50%, increase prices 100%.

 

Hopefully this initiative.will catch on, but I doubt it.

[Thian]

Oh and i did check the new pier under the Chao Praya river to see that NOTHING has been done so far....

 

So when will the riverboats arrive at the new pier?

[Crossy]

7 minutes ago, Thian said:

So when will the riverboats arrive at the new pier?

 

Can't answer as it's not part of the PL project, you could try asking the operator of the boats (no I don't know who that is).

 

Let's stay on topic i.e. the fare reduction.

 

EDIT Don't forget, users of the smart card also get a 14 Baht discount if they transfer between the lines within 1 hour.

 

 

[bark]

Better to spend money to advertise. Let people know.

[pookiki]

Quote

 

Maybe the person/politician/junta member responsible for this colossal design guffaw should have to refund to the government the costs for constructing this sky train line with no sensible transfer at Bang Sue. And why limit reduced fares to persons purchasing 'smart cards'?  Certainly some irony there!

[Denim]

This fare reduction will make very little difference to the shortage of passengers.  There are no small tweaks they can make that will remedy the fact that the catchment area does not have a sufficient population to service this line. They are just going to have to suck it up for about 5 years until new housing and villages bring in the extra people.

[Crossy]

1 hour ago, pookiki said:

Maybe the person/politician/junta member responsible for this colossal design guffaw should have to refund to the government the costs for constructing this sky train line with no sensible transfer at Bang Sue. And why limit reduced fares to persons purchasing 'smart cards'?  Certainly some irony there!

 

I don't see any design issues, I do see a planning and contractual issue.

[Thian]

1 hour ago, Crossy said:

 

I don't see any design issues, I do see a planning and contractual issue.

 

So you don't think it's a design issue to not connect the line directly to the other bts lines?

 

Not even to mention the missing link where the pendle bus drives now?

 

I think that's a big miss and the one responsible for it should get sacked on the spot.

 

Whatever it would have costed to connect it directly to the green lines they should have paid it. Now they loose 3 million a DAY and that will continue for many years if not forever.

Quote

 

[Crossy]

@Thian No I don't because I know much of what's been going on for the last five years. None of which was instigated by the current or for that matter the previous, government. Professional confidentiality and the fact that I like my job stops me from elaborating, but Google (in Thai) could be your friend.

 

Do you know where Tao Poon is relative to the Green Lines?

 

TP station is here 13.806225, 100.530801

 

Why would one connect to green at Mo Chit when there's an MRT station you can link to 1.5km away?  A link which will be operational in about 5 months. Check out Google maps satellite view for the structures running East and West from Tao Poon station, they've not appeared suddenly since the PM issued his directive. How quickly do you think that link could be built from scratch if it wasn't already nearly complete?

 

By the way the Purple Line, as I've said many times before is NOT, that's NOT, a BTS line, it is owned by MRTA and operated by BEM (the same company that operate the Blue Line MRT).

 

There are many issues with the Purple Line, but most of them will be ironed out in time, that railway will still be there in 50 years at which point it will likely be in central BKK.

 

[ExpatOilWorker]

Forget it....

Edited August 25, 2016 by ExpatOilWorker

[Thian]

38 minutes ago, Crossy said:

@Thian No I don't because I know much of what's been going on for the last five years. None of which was instigated by the current or for that matter the previous, government. Professional confidentiality and the fact that I like my job stops me from elaborating, but Google (in Thai) could be your friend.

 

Do you know where Tao Poon is relative to the Green Lines?

 

TP station is here 13.806225, 100.530801

 

Why would one connect to green at Mo Chit when there's an MRT station you can link to 1.5km away?  A link which will be operational in about 5 months. Check out Google maps satellite view for the structures running East and West from Tao Poon station, they've not appeared suddenly since the PM issued his directive. How quickly do you think that link could be built from scratch if it wasn't already nearly complete?

 

By the way the Purple Line, as I've said many times before is NOT, that's NOT, a BTS line, it is owned by MRTA and operated by BEM (the same company that operate the Blue Line MRT).

 

There are many issues with the Purple Line, but most of them will be ironed out in time, that railway will still be there in 50 years at which point it will likely be in central BKK.

 

 

Yes i know Tao poon and Bang sue and the way to mochit very well, drive it a few times a week on my motocy.

 

From Bang sue mrt to mochit is one huge constructionterrain right now, what a big miss they didn't build the skytrain in it. I call every underground train a metre and all the other ones a skytrain, it's just too confusing which company runs what.

 

We bought our house 6 years ago because of this purple line, just like everybody here did. Nobody knew about that crappy connection to the metro or we wouldn't have bought this house. I really think it's no fun to go on an escalator to the metro, buy a ticket, 1km down the track go up (and walk) by escalator again, buy a new ticket for the green line and go to Central World or so.

 

They could have built it straight to mochit or saphan kwai but they didn't.

 

Also the riverboats were promised but still nothing has been done.

 

Public transport is a very serious and important part of a metropole but the Thai don't take it so serious. 

 

If we go with 4 persons to the new parkinglots at the new stations we pay the parking price, then the skytrain tickets 2 way plus the metro tickets and also loose a lot of time by that. 

Better take a taxi or go by our own car.

 

The fact they even didn't link this line to Bang Sue is hilarious, now they 'll have to pay the bill for that. Also all the other commuters on Ngamwongwan pay the bill for it  because it's still far too busy on the road since nobody uses the skytrain. They all loose at least one hour a day in traffic jam while commuting. That costs even more than the loss from the purple line i guess.

 

So i think it's a big design faillure plus management faillure as well because the missing link is still not there.

[Crossy]

OK, you are entitled to your opinion, as we all are.

 

Once the link is working, you won't need to buy a Blue Line ticket. You can go all the way from any PL station to Chatuchak Park MRT (where you could transfer to the Green line BTS) on one ticket (or all the way to Hua Lampong if you wish). Tao Poon is a paid-side transfer, something that they actually got right. Off the PL train, down one escalator, on the BL train.

 

Personally, to go to Central World, I'd go all the way to Sukhumvit on the MRT as the transfer to the BTS is less fraught and covered all the way.

 

The transfers between the MRT and BTS are an historical nightmare, and sadly, will remain that way for years to come

 

At least when the Mangmoom card gets going you'll (in theory at least) be able to ride all the lines using the same card. Of course, that's a whole new ball game.

[Thian]

21 minutes ago, Crossy said:

OK, you are entitled to your opinion, as we all are.

 

Once the link is working, you won't need to buy a Blue Line ticket. You can go all the way from any PL station to Chatuchak Park MRT (where you could transfer to the Green line BTS) on one ticket (or all the way to Hua Lampong if you wish). Tao Poon is a paid-side transfer, something that they actually got right. Off the PL train, down one escalator, on the BL train.

 

Personally, to go to Central World, I'd go all the way to Sukhumvit on the MRT as the transfer to the BTS is less fraught and covered all the way.

 

The transfers between the MRT and BTS are an historical nightmare, and sadly, will remain that way for years to come

 

At least when the Mangmoom card gets going you'll (in theory at least) be able to ride all the lines using the same card. Of course, that's a whole new ball game.

 

Well i didn't use the metro for 10 years but we'll see if we do, the skytrain stops at the entrance of Central World and Emporium, that's where we like to go sometimes for shopping.

 

I bet that mangmoomcard will come a lot faster because now people here can see the power they have by not using the purple line. If we don't use it for another year or so they will try to make it more convenient for us and use article44 to speed things up.

 

Also i think the price is too high since poor people can't afford to use it, that's a big no-no. Public transport should be used by everybody so the roads get more empty. We have bahtbus/minivan/motocytaxi/taxi/buses/riverboats they should all start using the skytrain/metro in future to make BKK an efficient city at worldstandard.

 

If they can make that work the whole country will profit from it.  We loose far too much time now because of congestion, hence we like to go shopping in Singapore or Tokyo these days...

 

Also i would like to know what they are building at the Chatuchak constructionsite, nobody seems to care but it's massive. Yes a trainstation and busterminal but for the rest i have no idea.

 

My hope for now is on the riverboats, if they are convenient and fast i think i'll use them a lot. They are much more fun than sitting in a dark tube underground.

 

 

[Crossy]

1 hour ago, Thian said:

Also i would like to know what they are building at the Chatuchak constructionsite, nobody seems to care but it's massive. Yes a trainstation and busterminal but for the rest i have no idea

 

It's Bangsue Grand station, the replacement for Hua Lampong which is way too small and has poor links.

 

When complete Bangsue Grand will serve the MRT Blue Line (via an underground walkway), SRT long-distance, Airport Express (when it gets extended round to DMK), SRT Red Line (all shades, 92km of urban commuter railway) and the High-Speed rail links. Also being built there is the Red Line depot and some SRT servicing sheds for their ancient diesel units.

 

There is however, no bus terminal planned, the existing Mo Chit terminal is supposed to move to Rangsit (it's in the way of the structures for the depot). Of course the correct place for it, is, IMHO, right where it is now, but since when did anyone in authority here listen to a farang (or anyone else for that matter)?

 

[Thian]

1 hour ago, Crossy said:

 

It's Bangsue Grand station, the replacement for Hua Lampong which is way too small and has poor links.

 

When complete Bangsue Grand will serve the MRT Blue Line (via an underground walkway), SRT long-distance, Airport Express (when it gets extended round to DMK), SRT Red Line (all shades, 92km of urban commuter railway) and the High-Speed rail links. Also being built there is the Red Line depot and some SRT servicing sheds for their ancient diesel units.

 

There is however, no bus terminal planned, the existing Mo Chit terminal is supposed to move to Rangsit (it's in the way of the structures for the depot). Of course the correct place for it, is, IMHO, right where it is now, but since when did anyone in authority here listen to a farang (or anyone else for that matter)?

 

Oh i see, i thought they would also rebuild chatuchak market and JJ-mall which is allready half demolished or unfinished after construction.

 

So it will be the big hub for the new train and skytrainlines/metro. See they have big plans and only that 1 km of extra skytrain from tao-poon to mochit would make it all perfect. Costs a little bit extra but would save all the commuters 10-15 minutes every day and a lot of frustration for the next century or so.

 

Anyway, let's see if they finish it all and in time.

[thedemon]

10 hours ago, Denim said:

This fare reduction will make very little difference to the shortage of passengers.  There are no small tweaks they can make that will remedy the fact that the catchment area does not have a sufficient population to service this line. They are just going to have to suck it up for about 5 years until new housing and villages bring in the extra people.

 

Where exactly is the presumably empty land along the PL route that these housing and villages should be built?

 

[Denim]

51 minutes ago, thedemon said:

 

Where exactly is the presumably empty land along the PL route that these housing and villages should be built?

 

 

Along Rattanathibet road at a casual glance it seems that all the frontage road is already occupied. This is indeed the case. But in many areas say 1 kilometer back there are lots of empty spaces that are slowly being filled with new moobahns. Preuksa real estate is a very big player in this area and they are busy buying up these vacant spaces for new villages. For the middle classes they offer 3 bedroom homes often not exceeding 20 dtarangwa ( I know because we lived in two of their developments in Bangyai before moving). This means they can pack a lot of homes into a relatively small space. Now the line is finished you can expect a lot more condominiums to be built too. However......for now housing development is playing catch up to infrastructure. It will all come good in the end but there are not going to be any quick fixes to make the line profitable in the short term. If you factor in how Bangkokians love to own and drive cars then it would seem that whoever made the original calculations regarding initial commuter traffic got their sums woefully wrong.

[Thian]

6 hours ago, thedemon said:

 

Where exactly is the presumably empty land along the PL route that these housing and villages should be built?

 

 

Along the purple line and that area...is that hard to understand? Do you think the carsalescompany's and so on will always stay at the skytrrain?

 

Every station will get a big condo, between them are the entrances to the moobaans who can be huge...you only get access if invited.

[Thian]

4 hours ago, Denim said:

 

Along Rattanathibet road at a casual glance it seems that all the frontage road is already occupied. This is indeed the case. But in many areas say 1 kilometer back there are lots of empty spaces that are slowly being filled with new moobahns. Preuksa real estate is a very big player in this area and they are busy buying up these vacant spaces for new villages. For the middle classes they offer 3 bedroom homes often not exceeding 20 dtarangwa ( I know because we lived in two of their developments in Bangyai before moving). This means they can pack a lot of homes into a relatively small space. Now the line is finished you can expect a lot more condominiums to be built too. However......for now housing development is playing catch up to infrastructure. It will all come good in the end but there are not going to be any quick fixes to make the line profitable in the short term. If you factor in how Bangkokians love to own and drive cars then it would seem that whoever made the original calculations regarding initial commuter traffic got their sums woefully wrong.

 

Yup it's the whole area and they allready started demolishing other buildings for the new condo's to be built.

 

But because of the delay of some years people in the area all bought several cars for transport. Don't think they will sell those on the spot because now they have (a crappy connected) skytrain. Myself and wife also just have new vehicles because we don't want to have problems while in trafficjam on a very overloaded road. We even have not been in the new skytrain and live very close to it.

 

We are very disappointed with that crappy connection and so are the Thai in our area. Going from Bang Sue by metro to chatuchak and there climb the stairs to the bts when it's superhot is sure not our hobby, there even is no escalator on Mochit bts station!

Imagine using the purple line to the airport with a heavy suitcase, not an option for us.

 

Also many houses in the moobaans in the area are sold but unoccupied. They will come when the purple line is fully running they say but if the connection socks they might just sell the house and not come at all. It's not that all problems are gone when you use skytrain, if you have heavy shoppingbags it sure isn't.

 

Maybe they should also stop with that parkingfee at the transferstations, Mo-chit parkinglot is also for free.

 

I think in a few years the purple line will be busy but only if everybody can pay the price and has advantage if they use it. For me it's still far to slow and my motobike is much faster and can be parked directly where i want to be.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Crossy]

2 hours ago, Thian said:

We are very disappointed with that crappy connection and so are the Thai in our area. Going from Bang Sue by metro to chatuchak and there climb the stairs to the bts when it's superhot is sure not our hobby, there even is no escalator on Mochit bts station!

 

Do you mean they've removed this one? :-

 

 

and this one? :-

 

 

Indeed they're not both convenient for the MRT entrances (the one near the parking is closest) but don't forget the BTS was there first.

 

There are no down escalators on any BTS stations IIRC (Siam may be an exception and Asoke has one to access the MRT), a cost-saving exercise way back when it was built, but many metros in the region are the same.

 

Why not wait 6 months until the link is operational before bashing anything and everything?

 

[Thian]

7 minutes ago, Crossy said:

Do you mean they've removed this one? :-

 

 

No no that one,  the stairs after you bought the ticket is the problem. The one to the trains, it makes you sweat and after it you still have to wait for the skytrain to arrive in the heat and even can't sit.

 

Why not wait 6 months? I allready wait many years for that purple line and even bought a new house, new car, new motocy and that all has to do with the (delay of the) purple line.

 

If you don't believe me that the Thai also hate the bad connection you'll see it in the sold ticketnumbers. Today they lost another 3 million baht on this line.

 

 

 

 

[Crossy]

I don't have photos inside Mo Chit BTS, but there is definitely an escalator to the platform, try walking a tad further along the concourse. IIRC it's at the same end as the escalator up from the road on the parking side.

 

There are (or at least were) seats at the ends of the BTS platforms (it's been a while since I actually looked for them), but it's unusual to find them anywhere on mass transit, they get in the way of passenger flow and encourage loitering, after all you shouldn't be there for more than 7-8 minutes even at off-peak times.

 

There is certainly no seating on the Purple Line stations.

 

The whole idea of the station design is to get people in, get them on the trains and get rid of them as quickly and conveniently as possible.
 

[Thian]

1 minute ago, Crossy said:

I don't have photos inside Mo Chit BTS, but there is definitely an escalator to the platform, try walking a tad further along the concourse. IIRC it's at the same end as the escalator up from the road on the parking side.

 

There are (or at least were) seats at the ends of the BTS platforms (it's been a while since I actually looked for them), but it's unusual to find them anywhere on mass transit, they get in the way of passenger flow and encourage loitering, after all you shouldn't be there for more than 7-8 minutes even at off-peak times.

 

There is certainly no seating on the Purple Line stations.

 

The whole idea of the station design is to get people in, get them on the trains and get rid of them.
 

 

Well we always park the car at mo-chit parkinglot (if it's not full) and take the escalator up...buy a ticket and climb that very long stairs to the trains. I've never checked the rest of the station. It's no fun to wait there in the heat and 7 minutes is too long as well.

 

7 minutes (max) waiting at mochit, 7 minutes at taopoon, 7 minutes at the purple-line station....that's 21 minutes in total (max). If you do that every day it means you loose a few hours every week which could have easy been avoided by just extending the purple line to mochit, just build it above the new to build trainstation or above the road along chatuchak market.

 

 

[Crossy]

If you don't want to wait in the heat (sorry, Thailand is a tropical country) why not drive in your air-conditioned car and wait in the traffic?

 

It's an unfortunate fact of life in the city that the mass-transit doesn't always go where you want to be, the system is (supposed to be) designed to cover the area where most people want to be.

 

Bangkok's mass-transit system is still in its infancy with only 5 lines plus a BRT, compare with what's been done in Delhi where construction started at about the same time as the MRT.

 

The Purple Line is certainly a bit of an oddball, at least as to when it was built (before the more central lines), but that was a politically driven decision, nothing to do with common sense.

[Crossy]

For information this is the view from the Blue Line platform at Tao Poon, you can see the tunnel portal which leads to Bang Sue in the distance.

 

 

The same section viewed from the Purple Line, a better view of the portal.

 

 

 

[robblok]

1 hour ago, Thian said:

 

Well we always park the car at mo-chit parkinglot (if it's not full) and take the escalator up...buy a ticket and climb that very long stairs to the trains. I've never checked the rest of the station. It's no fun to wait there in the heat and 7 minutes is too long as well.

 

7 minutes (max) waiting at mochit, 7 minutes at taopoon, 7 minutes at the purple-line station....that's 21 minutes in total (max). If you do that every day it means you loose a few hours every week which could have easy been avoided by just extending the purple line to mochit, just build it above the new to build trainstation or above the road along chatuchak market.

 

 

 

Wow then instead of 3 waiting stops you got 2 that is 14 minutes. I wonder if that 7 minutes is too much for you.

 

And the heat.. you chose to live here  Otherwise go back to rainy Netherlands. I traveled from a village near Hoorn to Amsterdam.. I had more stops than 3 if I wanted to get to my work. If I did it with the train.. also not good.. Give me this heat over the cold and rain waiting in the Netherlands. 

 

We have a word for people like you back home something with vinegar. 

[Thian]

29 minutes ago, robblok said:

 

Wow then instead of 3 waiting stops you got 2 that is 14 minutes. I wonder if that 7 minutes is too much for you.

 

And the heat.. you chose to live here  Otherwise go back to rainy Netherlands. I traveled from a village near Hoorn to Amsterdam.. I had more stops than 3 if I wanted to get to my work. If I did it with the train.. also not good.. Give me this heat over the cold and rain waiting in the Netherlands. 

 

We have a word for people like you back home something with vinegar. 

 

Would you compare Hoorn with Bangkok??  It's too early for lao khao mate.

 

And how can i catch the skytrain without waiting for  the purple line train first?? So that's 3 times waiting in my book. With that pendlebus we have right now it's even 4! times waiting.

 

The heat at mo-chit bts combined with the exhaustfumes really is no fun, if i have to take that i would rather not go to the malls downtown. And there even is no fan hanging above waiting passengers nor a bench to sit on. If people get a heatstroke because of it i can understand it.

 

But i doubt you ever come out of Bang Yai because all i read from you is against mr T, nothing else.

 

 

 

 

[robblok]

14 minutes ago, Thian said:

 

Would you compare Hoorn with Bangkok??  It's too early for lao khao mate.

 

And how can i catch the skytrain without waiting for  the purple line train first?? So that's 3 times waiting in my book. With that pendlebus we have right now it's even 4! times waiting.

 

The heat at mo-chit bts combined with the exhaustfumes really is no fun, if i have to take that i would rather not go to the malls downtown. And there even is no fan hanging above waiting passengers nor a bench to sit on. If people get a heatstroke because of it i can understand it.

 

But i doubt you ever come out of Bang Yai because all i read from you is against mr T, nothing else.

 

 

 

 

You will be surprised where I go, I got a car and big bike so I go everywhere. (but unlike you I am not retired not an old fart yet)  I am comparing Bangyai with Hoorn.. that is where it originates. Logic is lost on you obviously. 

 

I was comparing your 3 stops to a two stops if it would have gone all the way to mochit (your own text). Please pay better attention. 

 

Heatstroke.. from 21 minutes waiting.. (broken up in 3 times). Your delusional.