Thread: Phuket airport bus back on the agenda

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Phuket Airport Bus Meeting Must Insist on Small Change From Tuk-Tuk and Taxi Drivers
By Alan Morison
Monday, June 10, 2013
Phuket News Analysis

Phuket Airport Bus Meeting Must Insist on Small Change From Tuk-Tuk and Taxi Drivers - Phuket Wan

PHUKET: The proposed bus network between Phuket International Airport and Phuket's western and southern beaches is back on the agenda tomorrow.

Talks are to take place at the Phuket Land Transport Office in Phuket City about plans for a public meeting to gauge the wishes and needs of Phuket's residents for a low cost, hop-on, hop-off bus service.



The meeting is expected to provide different views to those of the tuk-tuk drivers and taxi drivers in the Kata-Karon area who have already said they will blockade Phuket roads if the buses run.

As an international holiday destination with high-priced tuk-tuks and taxis or high-risk motorcycles as the only transport choices on offer for many, Phuket faces joining the real world or falling off the international tourism map.

What's disturbing in a social sense is that Phuket's young men appear too often to aspire to the easy life of a taxi driver charging extortionate fares rather than seek a university degree.

No other place in the world has elevated driving tuk-tuks and taxis to this kind of unreal status. Taxi drivers in other places are usually industrious, not, as they become on Phuket, relatively idle, yet growing rich.

No wonder that the number of tuk-tuk and taxi drivers on Phuket continues to expand, day by day. They join the village boys' clubs renowned for maintaining their monopoly over Phuket transport.

The fares are not just excessive but extortionate, outlandish and outrageous. This is because passengers are forced to pay for a journey they don't make - the journey the tuk-tuk or the taxi takes back to its original base.

Phuket's traditional village system permits taxis and tuk-tuks to deliver passengers to other parts of Phuket, but not to pick up passengers in those villages.

The result: a regular rip-off for which Phuket has become notorious worldwide. The island's attractions may keep people coming for a little longer, but Phuket's appeal is wearing thin in the face of the taxi-tuk-tuk scam and similar rip-offs.

Now the greed of the taxi and tuk-tuk drivers is growing and they are demanding monopoly commissions from retailers and tour operators and resorts. It's a grab that will eventually bust Phuket.

What's more alarming is the link between the taxi and tuk-tuk monopoly and the deaths and injuries inflicted on Phuket's own people on Phuket's roads.

Because Phuket people, like many tourists, also cannot afford the tuk-tuk and taxi fares, they are forced to ride on motorcycles. And so they die. And they are maimed, in large numbers.

The taxi and tuk-tuk monopoly will not let their own children ride in the relative safety of low cost, hop-on, hop-off buses.

A growing number of people on Phuket see the harm that this transport monopoly brings to the whole community and its future.

But a growing number of drivers also sign on for the easy money that being part of the tuk-tuk and taxi monopoly delivers.

A bus service would give Phuket's young people a chance to live a little longer without risking their lives on motorcycles.

It would also bring Phuket out of the age of village powerbrokers and into the modern international world, where people earn an honest living for a day's work, and where visitors are not seen solely as the target for easy rip-offs.

The good people of Phuket have not given up. The hope is that tomorrow's meeting will be another step towards enlightenment and 21st century reality for Phuket's poor, misguided tuk-tuk and taxi drivers.

Anyone that tries to set up will get run off in the end.

I will be boycotting the new bus service.

Most hotels pick-up from the airport so you only need one taxi to get to the airport. $15 for a 40 minute 35 Km ride. Hardly expensive and nothing when compared to the cost of the holiday.

Even taxi driving mafia scum have to earn a crust so 'just say no' to the Phuket bus service!

Originally Posted by chingching

What's disturbing in a social sense is that Phuket's young men appear too often to aspire to the easy life of a taxi driver charging extortionate fares rather than seek a university degree.

its the locals who need a bus service to get around the island

Phuket Airport bus service to go as far as Patong only

PHUKET: A decision was made today that the Airport-to-Kata bus service will be launched this month, but initially it will go only as far as Patong.

Naraporn Tuarob
Tuesday 11 June 2013, 06:12PM


"Phuket society is sick": Vice-Governor Jamroen Thippayapongthada.
This is due to warnings from taxi drivers in Kata and Karon that they will block roads and possibly use violence to stop the service, which they view as a threat to their livelihood.

The decision to start the new service was made at a meeting this afternoon (June 11) at the Phuket Land Transport Office (PLTO), chaired by Vice-Governor Jamroen Thippayapongthada.

Opinions voiced at the meeting showed that impatience from a wide section of society with the opposition to just about everything displayed by the island’s taxi drivers.

V/Gov Jamroen was plainly sick of the delays, and of constant obstruction of provincial plans by people who think only in selfish terms. “I think that society is now sick, Phuket is sick.” He also wanted “good people” to stand up and be counted. “Phuket society is corrupt because good people stand by and do nothing.”

So the bus will go to Patong. As to the section of the service between Patong and Kata via Karon, a public hearing is to be held soon – the date has yet to be fixed – probably at Phuket Rajabhat University.

Peerapong Polpramoon, President of the Phuket Press Club, urged officials to invite as broad a section of society as possible to the hearing.

“We should invite people from every section of society in equal proportion instead of only groups who think they stand to lose from the plan. We have laws to cover [opposition] and this [bus service] is a good project for the public as a whole.”

Krissada Tansakul, Vice-President of Phuket Tourist Association, said, “I agree with this [bus service] idea and it will be good if we can do it fast.

“Why do we have to bow to them [taxi drivers] when we have laws and regulations ready to be enforced. The administration has a duty to take care of it. It’s not hard to do.”

He suggested opening up the service to bids from other companies apart from the one that won the contract to run it, whose identity has so far been kept secret.

“Is it possible to [re]open the bidding for the bus line? For example, in Patong we have many entrepreneurs such as Pisona; would it be possible for them to take part of the bidding? If yes, they will be a good buffer, instead of just a single company getting the concession.”

(Pisona is the business vehicle of Phrap Keesin, son of Patong Mayor Pian Keesin, who recently agreed that the bus could stop in one place in Patong. Mr Phrap is also chairman of the Phuket Taxi Federation, which groups a large percentage of Patong’s tuk-tuks.)

The bus service also received support in today’s meeting from representatives of hotel associations, the tourism industry and the Phuket Chamber of Commerce.

“The conclusions of today’s meeting will be brought up in the Provincial Meeting and I think we should be able to launch the service from the Airport to Patong within this month,” said Jaturong Kaewkasi of the PLTO.

The latest plan is for the bus service to run 16 times a day between 6am and 9pm. The buses have the capacity to seat 24 people

- See more at: Phuket Airport bus service to go as far as Patong only

He suggested opening up the service to bids from other companies apart from the one that won the contract to run it, whose identity has so far been kept secret.

Because it wasn't his brothers company.