BMTA promises to solve public bus shortage

Bangkok Mass Transit Authority promises to solve the public bus shortage after people in the city made complaints on social media.

The BMTA director responded to the criticism and called for patience. He says they are working to improve bus routes and increase bus staff and added commuters will see an improvement in a month.

รถเมล์ไทยแฟนคลับ Rotmaethai, which means public bus fans, is a Facebook page which shares news, useful information, and fun facts about Thai public buses. The page also has a channel for people, especially Bangkokians, to complain about buses, bus drivers, and BMTA services.

On June 12, the platform announced that many people had complained to page admin that they could not find buses after 8pm, which is considered a rush hour in the city.

The platform got in touch with BMTA and asked whether they could find a member of staff to try and find a bus after 8pm to get an understanding of how commuters feel. But finding a bus after 8pm is only half the problem because travellers sometimes can not board a bus for overcrowding, there are traffic jams and waiting in heavy rain is wearisome. Then there are occasions when a bus just stops operating without any notification.

The official Facebook account of Bangkok Governor Chadchart Sittiphun, BMTA, the Department of Land Transport, and many leading people in the Thai media were tagged on the post.

The Director of BMTA, Kittikarn Jonduang, acknowledged the problem saying public buses are still available after 8pm, but some routes have been stopped temporarily to improve the service. He says 2,885 buses out 3,000 are available but only 2,700 of them are in service on 108 routes. Kittikarn also made it known that the BMTA has staff shortage problems and 700 more staff were needed for full services to resume.

Kittikarn added it would take about a month to solve the problems but revealed they are on top of it. The BMTA is surveying the actual numbers of passengers on each route and plan to adjust the numbers of buses and staff according to the survey result. The director also added they would not reduce the number of buses even if the BMTA is affected by the increasing oil prices.

SOURCE: Thai News Agency | รถเมล์ไทยแฟนคลับ Rotmaethai