Govt considers letting poor people ride BTS for free, and netizens are angry

[muffy]

Double the price for farangs .

[Thian]

12 hours ago, robblok said:

Now I understand the need for the poor to travel too and that suggestion sounds smart. The only problem I have with it is that the BTS is full enough already and non poor people are paying enough. Surely its not a smart idea to add to the amounts there already are and taking a bus would be better. Its either that or increase the amount of BTS carts, adding non paying members of the public to an already crowded system is not a smart thing to do. 

They can just buy a few more bts trains and let them ride more often.

 

Bangkok has to use more public transport, no matter how. Also the city needs less of those huge cars and more motobikes (electric ones).

[DrTuner]

17 hours ago, gdgbb said:

It's already been done, it's called the MRT.

Yeah, try taking that to the west side of the river.

[Crossy]

4 hours ago, DrTuner said:

Yeah, try taking that to the west side of the river.

 

Coming "soon", the Blue Line extension, complete with two (yes two) river crossings.

 

Building mass transit either elevated or underground isn't a five minute job, that said, Bangkok isn't exactly quick off the mark.

 

Delhi started construction in October 1998, with the first line opening in 2002. There are now six lines totaling 209km with 160 stations.

 

Contrast with Bangkok, the first line opened in 1998. Now we have a total of 76 stations over 5 lines, with nothing more due to open until 2018 (ok 1 station on the BTS east extension this year).

 

[planr]

On 2/3/2017 at 6:27 PM, Crossy said:

A little competition for those advocating adding extra trains / reducing the headway.

 

No prizes other than the satisfaction but please answer the following questions:-

1. How much would it cost to reduce the peak-hour headway from the current 4 minutes (actually slightly better) to, say, 3 minutes?
2. How about 2 minutes?
3. What about increasing the trains to 5 cars?
4. Where would the budget come from?
5. If you let a contract 1st March 2017, when would you expect to see the fruits?

No exact answers, correct number of zeros would be close enough, oh, and justification for those numbers of course.

 

And, of course, I know those members who are in the industry, as they know me, so guys, you are excluded :)

 

How about another angle from someone familiar with, but not in the industry ;-) 

 

BTS and BEM are listed, BTSGIF gets most of the farebox revenue - they have little incentive from a shareholders point of view to invest heavily in service expansion to provide half empty trains. I hate rush-hour full trains at 2pm on a Sunday as much as the next guy, but the current operating model leaves little room for anything (or anyone!) else, no? 

[berybert]

I'm too poor to hire  a Bentley any chance I can ride  one for free ?

Edited February 5, 2017 by berybert

[DrTuner]

On 2/4/2017 at 3:57 PM, Crossy said:

 

Coming "soon", the Blue Line extension, complete with two (yes two) river crossings.

 

Sure, I've been looking at the progress on Pinklao road for almost two years now. I think they managed to move something in that time, possibly a couple of specks of dust. Ain't anything happening there, I'm not holding my breath this decade.

[Crossy]

1 minute ago, DrTuner said:

Sure, I've been looking at the progress on Pinklao road for almost two years now. I think they managed to move something in that time, possibly a couple of specks of dust. Ain't anything happening there, I'm not holding my breath this decade.

 

You're probably not far off there

 

No operating contracts let yet, so no systems contracts even drawn up

 

[roamer]

The "crush" on the BTS or MRT is a mere pipedream for those of us spending 20 minutes in a rugby scrum just trying to access the Circle line platform, let alone a train at London's Kings Cross at 8.30 am.